Sandra Sigauke¹*, Olalekan T Jeremaiah², Habeeb Oyedele³ and Faith Dube⁴

¹Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
²Veterinary Science Department, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
³Veterinary Science Department, Pan African University Life and Earth Science Institute, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
⁴Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

*Corresponding Author: Sandra Sigauke, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.

Received: April 21, 2022 Published: May 19, 2022

Abstract

A cross-sectional survey was conducted to assess small holder cattle owners’ awareness, availability and accessibility of the vaccine against Lumpy skin disease. This knowledge from the farmers provides an insight into the causes of the recurrent outbreaks in the Midlands province and perhaps throughout Zimbabwe. A total of 108 farmers were involved in the study, an interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on the vaccine handling, storage and administration practices as well as the accessibility and availability of the LSD vaccine. Findings from this study show that although most farmers (83.3%) have a basic knowledge of vaccine handling, storage and administration they still face problems due to unavailability and inaccessibility of the LSD vaccine. The vaccine is expensive (average $2.00/dose), and most farmers cannot afford to vaccinate their cattle annually due to low income (average $82.00/month). Vaccination is the mainstay of LSD prevention and unavailability of the vaccine may result in outbreaks occurring during every rainy season. Measures should be taken to ensure that the vaccines are made available and accessible to smallholder farmers at affordable prices; this can abate the annual Lumpyskin disease outbreaks in Zimbabwe.

Keywords: Lumpyskin disease; Vaccine; Awareness; Availability; Accessibility; Affordability

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Citation

Citation: Sandra Sigauke., et al. “Lumpyskin Disease Vaccine: Awareness, Availability and Accessibility to Small-Holder Farmers in Midlands Zimbabwe". Acta Scientific Veterinary Sciences 4.6 (2022): 28-32.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Sandra Sigauke., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.