Nailogu Naikuni walks through her pasture in Eng'amata Esinoni, Kajiado County, patting one of her cows with the familiarity of family—because to her, they are. Dressed in her teal and red shuka, beads glinting at her neck and ears, she speaks with the certainty of someone whose entire world is built on the bond between a Maasai herder and her cattle. "I've named them," she says. "When I go milk a cow, I say, 'come Noonkeye,' and 'I love you so much.'"
For Naikuni and her family, who have raised ten children and generations of livestock on their small homestead, cattle are not merely animals—they are survival itself. The cows provide milk for sustenance and sale, meat for markets, and schooling fees for her children. "The cows are our bank," she explains. "I have no other savings, the savings are the cattle." Her children learn early that livestock care is the foundation of their future.
Yet this foundation has proven fragile. Across rural Africa, herds like Naikuni's can be devastated within weeks by diseases that sweep through communities with terrifying speed. Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP)—called "Olodua" locally—causes high fever and aggressive respiratory symptoms. Foot-and-mouth disease reduces milk production and reproductive capacity. Lumpy skin disease kills cattle through pox-like symptoms. Perhaps most catastrophic is peste des petits ruminants, the small ruminant plague, which can infect up to 90% of an unexposed goat herd and kill 70% of them. Globally, livestock diseases claim more than 20% of all livestock production annually, costing producers $300 billion each year.
The cruelest aspect of this crisis is that vaccines and medications exist—but they rarely reach the farmers who need them most. Small-scale homestead farmers in remote areas lack access to veterinary services. The solutions developed by the world's vaccine producers are designed for industrial operations, not for the Maasai herders of Kajiado County. This gap is where GALVmed has focused its work over recent decades: bridging the distance between vaccine producers and the small farmers whose survival depends on livestock health.
Change arrived in Kajiado when Melita Lein, a veterinarian born and raised in the same farming community as Naikuni, began working in the region. Growing up, Lein had witnessed the shortage firsthand—more animals than veterinarians, and the help that existed was costly, sporadic, and far away. Crucially, it often failed to account for Maasai culture and language, leaving farmers isolated. "We are no longer working in silos, in terms of disease control," Lein says.
Since Lein's arrival and the development of new vaccines and medications, Naikuni has witnessed a transformation. "There are diseases that are not there now because of these vaccines and medicines," she says. When her animals fall ill, she no longer watches helplessly—support is within reach. For Naikuni, this shift represents far more than health outcomes. It means her children have a genuine future in livestock keeping, that the traditions passed down through generations can continue, and that her bank—her cattle—remains secure.