Abstract

Rift Valley fever and lumpy skin disease are infectious ruminant diseases that are endemic in most African countries. The most cost-effective method of prevention and control is through annual vaccination. However, unlike lumpy skin disease, annual vaccination against Rift Valley fever is not practiced by many farmers due to its sporadic occurrences and shortcoming of the existing vaccines. This necessitates development of novel vaccines that would provide dual protection against a Rift Valley fever and a more prevalent disease. In this study, a discrete choice experiment was undertaken to guide vaccine development by examining the value smallholder livestock farmers place on different vaccine attributes and related attribute levels. The attributes considered are target-species, thermotolerance, nature of the vaccine, efficacy and price. The study was carried out with 164 smallholder livestock farmers in the Free State province. Results indicate that thermostaility is not a major deciding attribute to smallholder farmer?s choice of vaccine. Farmers prefer multivalent vaccines, which are highly efficacious with about 90?100 % efficacy levels. Farmers were found to be heterogeneous in preference. The heterogeneity is explained by socio-economic factors such as type of livestock owned, income level, gender and perceived disease risk. Farmers were also willing to pay for preferred attribute levels. However, for less favourable levels such as multispecies, female farmers were willing to accept a lower compensation than males. These findings present a favourable potential for development of a novel multivalent vaccine and also provide vaccine research and development scientists with evidence based knowledge for development of vaccines that cater for the needs of smallholder farmers.

Keywords

Discrete choice experiment; Willingness to pay; Vaccines; Livestock; Multivalent; Thermotolerance

Published in

Preventive Veterinary Medicine
2021, Volume: 189, article number: 105293
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Owusu Sekyere, Enoch

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of the Free State

Sustainable Development Goals

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages


UKÄ Subject classification

Economics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2021.105293

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/111569