Scientists launch bid to save cattle herds in Africa

A team of scientists from the Nairobi-based research institution has formed a global consortium to help save millions of domestic cows from a killer parasite that plagues some 11 sub-Saharan Africa countries by developing a vaccine. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) said on Friday the consortium funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will develop the highly advanced cattle vaccine to battle East Coast fever. "We need to get better control of East Coast fever because there are millions of people in East and Central Africa whose existence depends on healthy cattle, and right now they are losing about one animal every 30 seconds to this disease," said Vish Nene, who leads ILRI's Vaccine Biosciences Program and heads up this "improved vaccines for the control of East Coast fever" initiative. Nene said initial discussions are already underway with malaria vaccine experts, who are eager to see their livestock-oriented colleagues test these novel vaccine approaches in the fight against a similar protozoan disease. East Coast fever is a devastating cancer-like disease of cattle that often kills the animals within three weeks of infection. The vaccine can also help malaria and cancer research in humans. It is caused by the single-celled parasite Theileria parva, which is transmitted by the brown ear tick (Rhipicephalus appendiculatus) as it feeds on cattle. The disease was first recognized in southern Africa when it was introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century with cattle imported from eastern Africa, where the disease had been endemic for centuries, DFID said. The disease is spreading rapidly and currently threatens some 28 million cattle in East and Central Africa. It killed more than one million cattle in 11 countries -- Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- and caused 300 million U.S. dollars in losses in 2013. ILRI said the researchers will focus on recent breakthroughs that have isolated proteins in the parasite, called antigens, likely to be crucial in protecting cattle from East Coast fever to develop the vaccine. Some of the antigens appear capable of stimulating production of protective antibodies. Other parasite antigens could help endow the vaccine with the capacity to stimulate the cow's production of a type of lymphocyte known as cytotoxic or "killer" T cells that are able to target and destroy the cow's white blood cells infected with the parasite. Statistics indicated that about 70 percent of the human population of sub-Saharan Africa depend on livestock for their livelihoods, with farming and herding families relying on cattle for vital sources of food, income, traction, transportation and manure to fertilize croplands.