How you can protect your cows against deadly rabies

 “Rabies in cows?” Joseph Mutuku, a dairy farmer in Makueni County, wonders when we ask if he is aware that the virus affects cattle too.

Mutuku believes rabies is a disease that affects dogs and humans only. Here is the thing though: if a cow died of rabies not many farmers would know.

“There is still a high level of ignorance among Kenyans about rabies,” offers Dr Mathew Muturi, a veterinarian with Ministry of Health’s Zoonotic Disease Unit.

Should Kenyan farmers worry about rabies affecting farm animals? On a scale of zero to ten (zero standing for no concern and ten a lot of concern) Dr Emily Mudoga, also a vet, says Kenyan farmers’ worry should at least be a five.

Among pastoralist communities, she adds, the worry should be at seven. “It is not an everyday Kenyan farmer’s way of life to prod further the cause of death to his animal. The only way to find out if rabies caused death is if tests are done,” Dr Mudoga says.

Rabies, she says, can infect all mammals – warm blooded animals excluding birds and reptiles. It therefore goes without saying that goats, sheep, cows, donkeys and camels can all suffer from rabies. Unlike other diseases like foot and mouth rabies is insufferable. Every animal (including human beings) that has begun showing symptoms of sickness from rabies dies within 14 days.

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“Rabies is 100 per cent fatal as soon as symptoms are visible,” Dr Mudoga says. “It has no treatment.”

Rabies is caused by the rabies virus. The virus is transmitted from one animal to another through bites as the virus concentration in the saliva is usually heavy at later stages of the disease. In 99 per cent of the times an animal suffering from rabies got infected through the bite of a dog, Dr Mudoga says.

Rabies vaccine

“Though there is a chance that an infected cow, if it bites another, can transmit the virus,” she explains.

In Katuma village, Makueni County, farming couple Benard Musyoka and Evalyne Kalekye are still recovering from losing a donkey to rabies three months ago.

“The animal had grown weak over a few days. And then one time while it carried farm produce it just stopped and couldn’t move,” Musyoka says.

The donkey grew weaker by the day and the Musyokas sought the services of a vet.

“Two weeks before the donkey grew extremely weak a hyperactive dog was seen around it. That dog bit a villager who strangled it afterwards. So we don’t even know if the dog was rabid,” Kalekye says. The donkey died within a week. Vets from the Makueni County took away its head for testing and the diagnosis was confirmed. Farmers can prevent their animals from contracting rabies by vaccinating them. Rabies vaccine for animals costs Sh200 in government facilities or anything up to Sh3,000 from private vets.

“In countries where animal husbandry is practiced in large scale farmers take caution by vaccinating the animals. That practice is not so common in Kenya,” Dr Mudoga says. Alternatively, the vet adds, farmers who domesticate dogs need to vaccinate the canines against rabies hence protecting it, farm animals and human life.