Nearly three-quarters of the rural poor and some one-third of the urban poor depend on livestock for their food, income, traction, manure or other services.
Livestock provide poor households with up to half their income and between six and 35 per cent of their protein needs. With that in mind, the loss of a single milking animal can be devastating to such households. But the more devastating eventuality is the loss of a relative to a zoonotic disease. A zoonotic disease is an infection transmitted from an animal to humans.