Gates Foundation Funds ECF Infection-and-Treatment Method Roll-Out for East African Smallholder Farmers

The Gates Foundation funded ILRI's program to train veterinarians and para-vets across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda in administering the East Coast Fever Infection-and-Treatment Method (ECF-ITM). The technique — deliberately infecting cattle with live Theileria parva sporozoites followed by long-acting oxytetracycline — was the only practical immunisation option before a recombinant vaccine became available. By 2012 the program was immunising over one million cattle per year, protecting smallholder farmers from a disease that kills around a million cattle annually and costs sub-Saharan Africa an estimated $300 million a year.