Mobile phone-based syndromic surveillance
system for early detection and control of
livestock diseases
Bernard Bett1, Benson Long’or2, Absolomon Kihara2
1. International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi Kenya
2. Directorate of Veterinary Services, Lodwar, Kenya
3. Badili Innovations Limited, Nairobi, Kenya

Introduction
• Delivery of animal health services
constrained by technical and
institutional barriers
• Exploiting existing technologies –
smart phone, internet etc. to:
o bridge existing gaps on service delivery
o engage multiple actors – private sector
o reduce turn-around time between data
analysis and response
• Mobile phone-based syndromic
surveillance system introduced in
northern Kenya (Figure 1) Figure 1. Map of Kenya highlighting counties
involved in the study

Sub-county Vet
Department
Community Disease Reporter
Activities conducted
National DVS
County DVS
•Types of drugs sold
•Reported syndromes
Agro-veterinary shops
Abattoirs
•No. slaughtered/day
•Ante-mortem/PM lesions
&parasites
•Syndromes/rumours
•Disease outbreaks
Livestock owner
Figure 2. Locations of trained CDRs
Livestock markets
•Syndromes
•Disease outbreaks
•Movement patterns

Surveillance data

On-going activities
• More work to integrate the system with the national surveillance
system managed by the Directorate of Veterinary Services
• Offer more trainings to epidemiologists on data
management/analysis and triangulation of information
• Pilot incentives that promote reporting by the private sector
actors, e.g. an automated system for capturing drugs sold
• Policy dialogue on financing and utilization of the system in disease
control

Acknowledgements
• Directorate of Veterinary Services
• County Directors of Veterinary Services
• CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health
led by IFPRI
• Accelerated Value Chain Development project (AVCD), funded by
FtF, USAID

This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
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