ReliefWeb

Situation Overview:

• Dry weather prevailed all days of the month as no rainfall was received during the reporting period.  The forage quality and quantity is fair to worse and has continued to diminish compared to the month of July.
• The main source of water for August was permanent natural rivers.
• The average distance for livestock to water points increased by 20.88% in comparison to the month of July while house hold access to water increased by 4.55% in August.
• The body condition for livestock was fair to poor across all livelihood zones, with a declining trend. This is attributed to poor pasture conditions setting in and the increase in distance to watering points.
• The prices for cattle in the month of August recorded 4% increase compared to the previous month while prices for goats increased by 4.22% in August as compared to July.
• There was reduction of milk production by7.4 % at household level across livelihood zones, with average household consumption decreasing by 11.97 % during the period under review. This could be attributed to deteriorating forage quality and quantity and increased distance to grazing and water sources that severely affected livestock productivity.
• The average price per kg of maize increased by 2.79 % to Ksh. 29.40 in the month of August compared to Ksh. 28.60 recorded in July .The increasing prices could be attributed to declining house hold food stocks and insignificant on farm crop harvests.
• The main sources of income remained relatively constant in the month of review in comparison to July. The larger percentage of households (32%) relied on casual labour.
  However, the income from remittances increased from 4% in July to 7% in August.
• The average daily wage rate was Ksh. 219.00 fairly comparable to Ksh. 221.30 recorded in July
• There were five confirmed cases of measles in Kathangachini location and the measles vaccination carried out in the month of August for children under 5years.

• The proportion of children at risk of malnutrition was 8.47% in August. This a relatively high percentage compared to 7.32% which is the norm at this time of the year

• The overall Early Warning System phase for August is alert with a deteriorating trend.