Zoetis has unveiled LabCards in Kenya and Senegal.

American animal health company Zoetis has introduced its digital solution LabCards into Kenya and Senegal, expanding its African presence.

The android supported application developed in Uganda facilitates management of specimen samples between veterinarians and lab technicians.

First piloted in Uganda and Nigeria before being rolled out in Ethiopia and Tanzania in 2020, the digital application is gaining adoption grip, while increasing efficiency and turnaround time on specimen samples testing mostly for remote areas.

The application is one of the achievements from the first round of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s grant to Zoetis through the African Livestock Productivity and Health Advancement (A.L.P.H.A) project, an initiative targeting profitable and sustainable livestock production to benefit small-scale producers in Africa.

Kenya and Senegal have been crafted into A.L.P.H.A Plus, the second round grant aiming to further develop and integrate innovative solutions to advance veterinary care and diagnostic services to ultimately improve livestock health, productivity and food security.

Francis Kalule, technical manager diagnostics Sub-Saharan Africa said the system is an ideal answer to prompt specimen testing on livestock – cattle, goats and pigs, to allow correct diagnosis for diseases.

“The application has helped us cut on numerous trips a veterinarian would make to collect specimens, taking the specimen to the lab, going back to collect results and then delivering results to the farmer,” said Kalule.

Kalule said samples are now sent to the labs while the veterinary remains on the ground sending data through the application to technicians at the laboratory

“On the platform, the specimen samples testing progress can be tracked,” said Kalule adding that LabCards provides veterinarians and lab technicians with the right tools to work efficiently, leveraging on using digital technologies as the foundation.

In addition, the application has a library on disease and vaccines, built through managing data to indicate the prevalent diseases.

The platform, according to Kalule, has also been rolled out in Zambia and Zimbabwe on request, while the company has recently received an inquiry from Thailand.

Meanwhile Zoetis is committed to leverage on digital application to ensure timely and efficient data sharing between livestock stakeholders to enable data-driven decisions across the value chain.

“Our vision is to create a Farming information ecosystem platform that serves needs across the continuum of care providing inclusive and digitally-enabled animal health information for meaningful animal health improvements,” said Tetiana Miroshnychenko, Zoetis A.L.P.H.A Plus operations leader.