Outbreak of Rift Valley fever occur irregularly in East Africa, several years apart. When outbreak do occur, they kill thousands of cattle. A livestock vaccine against the disease exists, but it's rarely used. It's too expensive for farmers to use routinely and since it's not affective until a month after vaccination, administering it after an outbreak begins helps very little. Neverthless, experts predict that use of vaccine will increase significantly within next few years. (A)Rift Valley fever is spread by mosquitos, but each outbrak is so widespread that it is impractical to control by using insecticides. (B)When an outbeak of Rift Valley fever occurs, unaffected countries often refuse livestock for the countries affected by the outbrreak. (C)It could take less than a month for producers of the vaccine to adjust their production operations to cope with a large increase in demand. (D)Many cattle farmers in East Africa are nomadic or live remote village, and such farmers, who have little access to modern vetering madicine, are partically hard hit by outbreak of Rift Vally fever. (E)Recent published research has shown that certain identificable climate condition are almost invaribly followed, within two to five months, by an outbreak of Rift Vally fever. |