ETHICOBOTS (Ethiopia Control of Bovine Tuberculosis Strategies)

Ethiopia is the second most populous sub-Saharan African country with a rapidly growing population. It is a least-developed, predominantly agrarian country struggling to emerge from extreme poverty, through an ambitious national growth and transformation plan, to achieve middle income status by 2025. Livestock contributes to a high proportion of national income and is one of the pillars to economic development. Traditional extensive farming systems with the less productive local Zebu cattle are being supplemented and replaced with intensive farming of imported Holstein-Friesian and their cross breeds at a rapid rate driven by high demand for dairy and meat products of a rapidly growing urban population. Although bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is endemic in Ethiopia, the prevalence is low among the local Zebu cattle because of their relative resistance. Expansion of dairy farms around major urban centres has however created hotspots of TB infected exotic cattle. With no legal requirement to test and cull infected cattle in Ethiopia, unlike in developed countries, the potential for rapid spread of bTB across the cattle trade routes through amplification by the dairy farms in peri-urban areas is a real emerging danger. We propose to develop control strategies for bTB in Ethiopia based on investigation and analysis of the epidemiology of the disease and its determinants through a series of interlinked social and biological science studies, encompassing the emerging livestock system, livelihood of affected farmers and available tools for bTB control. We will determine disease prevalence among dairy cattle in different areas, capture cattle trading and exchange mechanisms, study risk management and mitigation practices for households and document how prevailing social, cultural and economic factors impact them. We will quantify the burden of bTB among exposed intensive farm and abattoir workers and determine how illness and health is managed in poor families. Local perceptions of infection and disease transmission, coping mechanisms and gender roles in order will help explain consumption practices. In turn, these may enhance disease risk and impact poverty and wellbeing amongst an expanding high risk group. We will compare disease susceptibility among the local and Holstein cattle and evaluate the degree of protection given by BCG vaccination to cross-breed cattle. Based on the multidisciplinary information gathered by these investigations, we will assess the feasibility of various bTB control strategies such as vaccination, control of animal movements and health education within the Ethiopian context. We will determine factors that affect implementation such as cost-efficiency, social and cultural acceptability and practicality. This will be coordinated with targeted capacity building of Ethiopian researchers and institutions to enhance multidisciplinary scientific capabilities for sustainable local research for the longer term. The results will provide practical and effective bTB control strategies, which when applied, will significantly reduce the high rate of bTB and its zoonotic transfer in the expanding dairy sector; minimize trading of bTB infected dairy cattle to protect the national zebu herd and the livelihood of poor farmers; and reduce the risk of zoonosis in high risk populations. The current proposal builds on previous experience of a successful collaboration with the Ethiopian Government on bTB to focus on an emerging rapid change in the nature of livestock systems in this developing country, dairy farms, that impact on the livelihoods and health of poor people. The project will be carried out with the active participation of the relevant government units and local communities in the field to maximize the likelihood of implementation of results into policy and practice. The main expected outcome is reduced impact of a zoonotic disease on poor people and their livestock in a least developed country.