Tropentag, September 10 - 12, 2025, Bonn "Reconciling land system changes with planetary health"

Pastoralists’ preferences during livestock disease reporting and response in northern Kenya: A participatory study

¹University of Nairobi, Dept. of Public Health, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Kenya
²German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL), Germany
³University of Tennessee, Dept. of Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences, United States

Abstract

Livestock disease surveillance is important in early detection and control of diseases. In resource constrained settings, passive surveillance is predominately used, a system that relies heavily on the community to share information on livestock disease events for eventual response by relevant stakeholders. This study aimed to describe the passive surveillance system, documenting key reasons/criteria considered when reporting and responding to diseases.
The study was conducted in Marsabit county in Northern Kenya with pastoralists between 1/8/2023 – 30/11/2023 and 1/6/2024 – 30/8/2024. Through 27 FGDs, participatory epidemiology tools including matrix scoring and pairwise ranking were used to profile the stakeholders and utilization of different methods with respective criteria for livestock disease reporting and response and further understand their utilization overtime using timelines with proportional piling.
The disease reporting ecosystem in Marsabit was most influenced by livestock owners (median rank = 9/10), friends and traditional healers (median rank = 7/10) and Elders’ council and Private AHWs (median rank = 6/10). Disease reporting was primarily through mobile phones (median rank = 4/5) with their usage increasing markedly between 2001 to 2024. Livestock disease response was most frequently offered by livestock owners, friends and agrovets/private practitioners, with median ranks of 9/10, 7/10 and 6/10, respectively. Pastoralists responded to disease events mostly by themselves, using synthetic drugs (median = 8/10) and this practice had increased overtime from before the 1980s to 2024. The pastoralists’ decisions to report a disease event were largely influenced by accessibility of the stakeholder or method of reporting, perceived technical knowledge of the recipient, cost friendliness and affordability, while ability to provide quick response, credit facilities for services, having technical knowledge and affordability were important criteria for their choice in the process of disease response.
This study highlights the central role livestock owners play in disease reporting and response in underserved areas in pastoralist systems of northern Kenya, with a limited role played by public/government animal health services providers. The results suggest that veterinary services delivery systems should be reviewed with input from community stakeholders to improve surveillance, disease reporting and response. This integration would enhance livestock disease surveillance and protect pastoralists' livelihoods.

Keywords: Disease surveillance, livestock, participatory epidemiology, pastoral systems

Contact Address: Derrick Noah Sentamu, University of Nairobi, Dept. of Public Health, Pharmacology and Toxicology, P.O. Box 29053, 00625 Kangemi, Kenya, e-mail: sentsderrickgmail.com