All things zoonotic: An ‘Urban Zoo’ research project tracks livestock-based pathogen flows in and around Nairobi, March 2015. International Livestock Research Institute.
An Urban Zoo research project in Kenya (more formally called ‘Epidemiology, Ecology and Socio‐Economics of Disease Emergence in Nairobi’) is tracking pathogen flows in and around Kenya’s capital city. Urban Zoo researchers are investigating mechanisms leading to the introduction and subsequent spread of pathogens into urban populations through livestock commodity value chains. The focus of the project is on livestock as sources of these pathogens because emerging diseases are likely to be zoonotic in origin (that is, able to spread from animals to people) and because livestock pathogens, through the close interactions between livestock, their products and people, are at high of risk crossing the species barrier.
