Good data on livestock disease and mortality is essential for making informed investments in animal health, and to improve productivity and incomes. But decision-makers face enormous challenges when it comes to grasping and making sense of the existing body of literature and evidence, which is scattered across multiple databases or even unpublished.
The systematic evidence map for Ethiopia pulls together insights on cattle and small ruminant health and mortality, drawn from over 700 research articles published over the last decade. We aim to make it easier for researchers, investors and decision makers to quickly take stock of the available evidence, identify evidence gaps, and indicate areas for further research and investment. The results are presented via an interactive tool which is still under construction – comments are welcome!
Among its main findings, the map reveals that there are a number of key diseases of international concern which have been under-studied in Ethiopia, as well as relatively few papers on diseases in small ruminants compared to cattle.
Research summary:
Journal article:
- Tsouloufi TK, MacVicar IS, Donnison LM, Smyth KL, Peters AR. 2023. Systematic map of the most recent evidence (2010–2019) on ruminant production-limiting disease prevalence and associated mortality in Ethiopia. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 10:2023. DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2023.995213
Watch:
- Webinar on Platforms for agricultural data: how to address the fragmented landscape. Presentation by Dr. Louise Donnison, Senior Data Scientist at SEBI-Livestock. This session was part of the Improving Global Agricultural Data (IGAD) Community of Practice annual virtual meeting which took place on 7 April 2022.
Header photo credit: ILRI / Z. Sewunet (Source)