By Jeremy Clarke NAIROBI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Kenya on Tuesday said it would spend $2.41 million (170 million shillings) on livestock vaccinations and quarantines to save its meat industry, which is in the grips of a deadly Rift Valley Fever outbreak. The highly contagious disease mainly affects livestock but can be spread to humans through contact with infected fluids. About 150 people have died since the disease broke out in Kenya in December. The virus that causes the fever, which is also mosquito-borne, causes those infected to vomit blood or bleed to death. "The objectives of these activities are to control the disease so as to salvage domestic and international livestock trade," Joseph Munyao, the minister for livestock and fisheries development, told a news conference. Kenyans are renowned meat-lovers; the national dish is nyama choma or barbecued meat. But red meat sales have plummeted badly amid the Rift Valley Fever scare, hitting the meat business. "We once slaughtered 200 animals a day. ... Today it was 20," a veterinary officer in charge of Dagoretti Slaughterhouses in Nairobi told Reuters. "Over 3,000 people turn up every morning but there is no activity ... if animals aren't being bought, they're not being slaughtered," he said as dozens of workers idled outside the slaughterhouse, their usually blood-stained work coats all a pristine white. The government took out advertising space in the national dailies to educate Kenyans on the disease and how to handle meat. The government's $1.42 million emergency disbursement, and an additional $990,800 from donors, is aimed at ending the spread of the fever through quarantines, surveillance and mass vaccinations. Some 400,000 head of cattle have been vaccinated and the government is targeting 2 million in the affected areas and other districts prone to the epidemic. A similar outbreak killed hundreds of people in 1997-1998. Heavy rainfall in Kenya at the end of 2006 produced flood waters, which made good breeding grounds for different species of mosquitoes.
