Gates declares war on farm animal disease
- added October 11, 2008
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A grant of $28 million to combat disease in African farm animals aims to save the livelihoods of some of the world's poorest farmers. Currently, an estimated one-quarter of all livestock in the developing world die from preventable diseases each year.
The grant was given to the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), a non-profit UK agency, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development.
The first disease to be tackled is East Coast fever, which costs Africa $200 million every year. "African governments used to make a vaccine," says Steve Sloan of GALVmed, but this stopped when many state veterinary services were dismantled during the 1990s debt crisis.
GALVmed hopes to launch vaccines or drugs for six major livestock diseases by 2015. The list includes Rift Valley fever, which killed thousands of animals and hundreds of people in an outbreak in 2007, and is now spreading out of Africa.
The grant was given to the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), a non-profit UK agency, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development.
The first disease to be tackled is East Coast fever, which costs Africa $200 million every year. "African governments used to make a vaccine," says Steve Sloan of GALVmed, but this stopped when many state veterinary services were dismantled during the 1990s debt crisis.
GALVmed hopes to launch vaccines or drugs for six major livestock diseases by 2015. The list includes Rift Valley fever, which killed thousands of animals and hundreds of people in an outbreak in 2007, and is now spreading out of Africa.
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