By Kuda Pembere recently in Goromonzi
IT is 11 pm in the scotching sun as cattle jump into Mwanza Diptank in Mwanza Village,Goromonzi district, their usual place for dipping to fight against tickbone disease.
Diptanks also known as plunge dips also provide the most effective and efficient method for controlling ticks in animals against ticks, flies, mites, lice and other external parasites.
An hour earlier, delegates from United Nations quadripartite agencies of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization of Animal Health (WOAH), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) alongside Africa Union Centre for Disease Control (AU CDC) and Africa Union InterAfrica Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) have been taking turns inoculating the cattle over six months old with the Zimbabwean made Bolvax vaccine against theileriosis.
They were in the country commemorating the week-long Africa World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week.
The Zimbabwe theileriosis is an acute, frequently fatal disease of cattle caused by Theileria parva infection which occurs in the southern African country. Theileriosis occurs sporadically on the highveld of Zimbabwe usually during the period December to May.
The disease typically affects cattle over the age of one year; calves are rarely affected. The majority of occurrences happen between January and March. Primary outbreaks are frequently linked to recent herd additions and typically happen in herds with a moderate to high tick load.
If effective tick control measures are not taken, the disease is likely to return annually on an affected property; however, it does not appear to have much of a tendency to spread to other properties.
The mention of ‘January disease’, layman’s nomenclature for theileriosis, returns somber memories for Mr Godfrey Mwanza, the owner of this diptank.
In 2017, from a herd of 21 cattle, Mr Mwanza aged 64 lost 10 to theileriosis.
“We faced this problem of high cattle mortality between 2016 and 2017. Cattle are a symbol of wealth. The death of my cattle disturbed me so much to the extent that my children dropped out of school because I couldn’t afford to continue sending them to school. I was in the pen fattening business. I would feed the cattle and sell them at Binda and other big butcheries. Now, I don’t have big cattle to send to Binda for sale I am only left with small cows. The big cattle succumbed to January disease. I had 21 cows and 11 died,” he said.
Climate change is also adding salt to the injury as pastures are depleting due to the erratic rains.
“Apparently, Goromonzi district does not have big cattle breeds. A white man called Binda used to give us big bulls but we couldn’t maintain that due to the depleting pastures. Here in Goromonzi, erratic rainfall patterns have led to the depletion of our pastures. And also there are other areas where people got resettled. We are appealing for big cattle breed to help our area,” Mr Mwanza said.
To Mr Mwanza, the vaccination campaign came a bit late for them.
“Ah this program comes as a surprise for us. We never imagined our government coming up with such an initiative.
“This vaccine came late for us because this disease had resurfaced. Some two weeks ago, this villager had a cow which was killed by January disease.
“Medications for January disease are expensive. For example a 50 ml bottle of Butachem costs US$23. To think of using it is another issue because you may buy it and then the disease doesn’t attack your cattle which means you would have wasted the money. The drug will expire without being used. The Vet extension officers advise us not to administer the drug until the cow is infected with the disease.In our communal area we don’t have that kind of money,” he said. “We are also appealing to organizations like FAO to continue scouting working with Vet services for manpower.”
He also called for more surveillance of cattle diseases.
“Increased surveillance is also important for now we have this skin disease in cattle here in Goromonzi. We do not know what the government will do to respond to this emerging disease,” the cattle farmer said.
He hailed the resumption of the vaccination campaign.
“This vaccination campaign comes at the nick of time and we want the medicines to be readily available at affordable prices because we here we cannot sell our cattle frequently for they are our wealth.
“With the return of this vaccine, the cattle won’t die as in the past in large herds so I am hopeful I can resume pen fattening. I would buy a cow for US$400 and sell it double the price. So this helped me a lot and I was always happy,” Mr Mwanza said.
Zimbabwe’s department of veterinary services resumed the production of the theileriosis vaccine named Bolvac with support from UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office and the WOAH. According to Vet Services Tech department Deputy Director for Diagnostics and Research Dr Chenai Majuru, the vaccination program has seen about 300 000 vaccines produced with 4 000 cattle vaccinated.
Vaccinations have been done in Matebeleland North, Matebeleland South, Midlands, Masvingo with the vaccination campaign starting in Mashonaland East a few days ago.
AMR coordinator within the Department of Vet services Dr Tinashe Hodobo said there was overuse of tetracycline, an antibiotic in the treatment of bacterial diseases in cattle.
“The reason why we are at Mwanza we are doing some vaccinations. We have a vaccination exercise for January disease known as Bovine theileriosis. As you know from previous reports, this disease has caused a lot of loss in cattle due to mortalities. And such disease pressue has also been a contributing factor to the spike in use of certain antibiotics like tetracycline yet we fully understand…the best knowledge that we have available to date tells us that the pressure for antimicrobial resistance comes from the use of antimicrobials. As you can see in this situation under the pressure of bovine theileriosis, farmers were resorting to the use of antimicrobials,” he said.
He also said the Bolvac vaccine offers life long immunity.
“As you can see in this situation under the pressure of bovine theileriosis, farmers were resorting to the use of antimicrobials. So vaccines are now offering an alternative to the use of antimicrobials. They protect the animals against the pathogen, the disease organism, once they are vaccinated.
“So they won’t fall sick and the immunity from the vaccine is lifelong. So the need for the use of antimicrobials decreases, it goes down. So it is part of our broader strategies of preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics and as you know the antibiotics that we use in animals are the same classes of antibiotics that we use in treatment of human ailments.
“So preservation of their effectiveness is critical so that we can continue to benefit from the use of these molecules,” he said.
AU-IBAR Antimicrobial resistance expert Dr Joseph Magona said vaccination was important to minimize the use of antibiotics.
“Vaccination is a way to reduce the use of antibiotics especially in tickbone disease. If you don’t vaccinate your cattle against January Disease, you are going to use a lot of antibiotocs and that will lead to AMR,” he said.
