Feed The Future Innovation Lab for Animal Health

Godknows Mkwala works for a small-scale farmer in Zimbabwe, milking a dairy cow that produces an 10 liters of milk per day, on average.

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Animal Health (AHIL) is a five-year cooperative agreement funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security.

The goal is to improve human nutrition, economic welfare, and resilience by developing and improving vaccines and diagnostics for East Coast fever (ECF) – a top killer disease in East, Central and Southern Africa.

The project is based in Kenya and is led by the Washington State University. AHIL is a collaborative program with the University of Nairobi, the International Research Institute, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization.

About Us

The Feed The Future Innovation lab for Animal Health is a carefully thought collaboration that will combine good laboratory or bench science merged with excellent field studies to improve uptake of animal health interventions and deliberate measures of impact on the nutritional status of women and children, income of families and opportunities to improve the lives of livestock keepers.

The programme will identify interventions to reduce livestock diseases, particularly the deadly cattle disease known as East Coast fever and further develop local capacity in animal health through research training and institutional development.

Recent Posts and Events

11-year-old Peter Kilerai herds livestock home after school in Narok County, Kenya. Photo by AHIL.

Animal Health Innovation Lab Explores the Link Between Climate Change and East Coast Fever Transmission to Build Resilience and Improve Farmer Livelihoods

Climate change alters resource availability, prompting wildlife migration and East Coast Fever spread. Controlling ECF...