Between 500 and 900 million people living in rural areas of developing countries depend on livestock for food security, nutrition and transportation. But about 25% of livestock in developing countries dies every year from preventable or treatable animal diseases. The Department for International Development (DfID) wanted to simplify the way vaccines were developed and taken to market, working in partnership with farmers, experts and interest groups.
The research and evi
dence division in DfID worked with those groups to define the problem and understand the economic drivers behind it. They discovered fragmented markets and a lack of capacity in developing countries to produce high quality drugs. This meant that investment was high risk for pharmaceutical companies.
But the department discovered that those companies would be willing to consider investing if those risks and costs could be shared. So they set up GALVmed (the Global Alliance for Veterinary Medicines), a public-private partnership to deliver animal drugs and vaccines in Africa and Asia. This alliance has already significantly reduced the risk of livestock loss for poor farmers in developing countries, boosting their incomes and helping them to use agriculture as a way out of poverty.
More information
For more information from the policy leads in the Department for International Development, please contact Dr Alan Tollervey, Head of the Agriculture Team at a-tollervey@dfid.gov.uk, or Chris Whitty, Chief Scientific Advisor and Director Research & Evidence at c-whitty@dfid.gov.uk.
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