Lancet Countdown 2018 report shows concerning trends in heat and heat waves, infectious disease and declining food security

The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change is a multidisciplinary, international research collaboration that provides a global overview of the relationship between public health and climate change. Publishing its findings annually in The Lancet, the initiative generates research evidence to inform an accelerated policy response to climate change.

The Lancet Countdown 2018 report presents the work from leading academics and technical experts from 27 partner academic and United Nations institutions around the world, including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, University of Sydney and the World Health Organization. The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Among the report’s co-authors are Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist and co-leader of the Animal and Human Health program at ILRI, and Paula Dominguez-Salas, assistant professor in nutrition-sensitive agriculture at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on joint appointment at ILRI.

The Lancet Countdown initiative brings together climate scientists and geographers, mathematicians and physicists, transport and energy experts, development experts, engineers, economists, social and political scientists, and health professionals, reporting on 41 indicators across five key thematic groups:

• climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability;
• adaptation planning and resilience for health;
• mitigation actions and health co-benefits;
• economics and finance; and
• public and political engagement.

Below are the four key messages of the Lancet Countdown 2018 report:

1. Present day changes in heat waves, labour capacity, vector-borne disease and food security provide early warnings of the compounded impacts on public health that are expected if temperatures continue to rise. Trends in climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerabilities show an unacceptably high level of risk for the current and future health of populations across the world.
2. A lack of progress in reducing emissions and building adaptive capacity threatens human lives and the viability of the national health systems they depend on, with the potential to disrupt core public health infrastructure and overwhelm health services.
3. A number of sectors have seen the beginning of a low-carbon transition; the nature and scale of the response to climate change will shape the health of nations for centuries to come.
4. Ensuring a widespread understanding of climate change as a central public health issue will be crucial in delivering an accelerated response, with the health profession beginning to rise to this challenge.

The full text of the Lancet Countdown 2018 report is available for free via The Lancet website (you will need to create a free account with The Lancet).

 

ILRI scientist wins national award for excellence in One Health research

Johanna Lindahl, senior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (photo credit: ILRI/Dinesh).

We congratulate Johanna Lindahl, a senior veterinary epidemiologist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), on receiving the 2018 Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT) Award and SEK 100,000 in recognition of her excellent scientific contribution to global health. The award was presented at a ceremony held in Stockholm on 25 November 2018.

The citation for her award reads: “Johanna Lindahl has, from a holistic perspective and in cooperation with researchers from low- and middle-income countries, developed our knowledge within areas of crucial relevance for the well-being and survival of mankind globally, namely human and animal interaction (One Health) as well as antibiotic resistance.”

The decision on the recipient of the SIGHT Award 2018 was taken by the board of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Lindahl is also an associate professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Uppsala University.

 

CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health publishes 2017 annual report

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) has published its 2017 annual report which highlights the program’s accomplishments and activities during the first year of its second phase.

Detailed in the report are research, events and results from across A4NH’s five research flagships and four focus countries, including:

• in-depth analyses of food systems in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Vietnam, with a recently released report on findings in Ethiopia;
• details on the release of 29 new biofortified crop varieties, extending reach to 3.6 million farming households;
• the first licence for Aflasafe to be granted to a private company in Africa, for production, sale, and distribution in the Gambia and Senegal to protect crops from aflatoxin;
• a special issue of the journal Global Food Security dedicated to stories of change, an innovative initiative building a resource base of experiential knowledge that explores drivers of change in improving nutrition;
• research into how rice intensification in Africa can be achieved without increasing the risk of malaria; and
• efforts on incorporating equity into A4NH’s research agenda.

Download the annual report or read an interactive online version.

 

Animal health scientists promote One Health approach in tackling infectious diseases in Africa

Pipetting in ILRI’s biosciences laboratories (photo credit: ILRI/David White).

The scourge of infectious diseases in Africa was the subject of a recent symposium co-hosted by the Academy of Science of South Africa, the Uganda National Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) in Durban, South Africa on 12–13 April 2018.

The symposium titled Surveillance and response to infectious diseases and co-morbidities: An African and German perspective was attended by about 100 participants from Africa and Germany including senior researchers, policymakers and representatives from the private sector. Presentations and discussions revolved around antimicrobial resistance, One Health, co-morbidities of infectious diseases and the ‘Big Four’ infectious diseases in humans (HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and hepatitis C).

Scientists from the human medical field dominated the symposium but in a panel discussion, the few animal health scientists present, including Kristina Roesel from the Animal and Human Health program of the International Livestock Research Institute, drew the audience’s attention to the importance of a One Health perspective on human disease as two thirds of human pathogens are of animal origin. Thomas Mettenleiter, member of the Leopoldina and president of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (German Federal Research Institute for Animal Health), moderated the panel discussion.

The symposium was preceded by a one-day workshop on science advice jointly organized with the International Network for Government Science Advice–Africa and the International Council for Science Regional Office for Africa. Invited junior scientists got practical exposure to science advice including drafting communication strategies and role plays on infectious disease outbreak scenarios.

Article by Kristina Roesel

 

‘Is my food safe?’ – the state of current research on food safety

Pork on sale in a local wet market in Hanoi, Vietnam (photo credit: ILRI/Andrew Nguyen).

“Is my food safe?” This question voices a fundamental consumer concern – regardless of where they live, what their income level is, or where they purchase their food. The demand for information on food safety, meanwhile, grows louder particularly among consumers in low- and middle-income countries as they move towards cities and away from farms, growing more conscious of the quality of food they eat. But that information is rarely readily available, particularly in those countries.

Recognizing the universal nature of this question, the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy created a working group to consider current research on food safety, including metrics, tools, and definitions; identify areas of opportunity or need for additional research in this area; and suggest ways to make research on food safety in low- and middle-income countries more robust and replicable.

The results of this effort are reported in a new working paper and related technical brief by the ANH Academy Food Safety Working Group, which we have co-authored with our colleagues. The conceptual framework we developed in the course of undertaking this work identifies three main areas of focus:

• foodborne hazards and risks that consider private, public, and export standards;
• food safety system performance, which considers how well the food system delivers safe food; and
• foodborne disease outcomes, which look at the impact that the safety of foods has in public health and the economy, among others.

With such a wide scope and so many actors, it naturally follows that there is no one measure to comprehensively cover this issue, however, we also recognize the need for stakeholders to be able to measure and report on it to identify areas and means of improvement. An important component of the report offers principles to guide those designing and selecting appropriate food safety measures and metrics.

We recommend, among other things:

• those undertaking this process begin with a strategic plan that includes food safety goals and steps towards achieving them;
• the plan looks beyond processes to also consider outcomes and impact;
• the plan includes multiple measures, accurately reflecting the complex nature of this issue;
• what is being measured is understood and accepted by all stakeholders; and
• the benefits of measure-based food safety systems should outweigh the costs of their implementation.

As the working group conducted stakeholder workshops and situational analyses throughout Africa and Asia, we homed in on three key considerations for those looking to delve into the issue of understanding and managing food safety risks. Decision-makers need to understand:

• the scope of the problem, and its impacts;
• where concern exists, what it is rooted in, how it affects behaviour and what will allay it; and
• what is being done in management of the issue, who is and should be involved and what can make it more effective.

To be sure, the report makes clear the intimidating size and scope of the food safety issue in low- and middle-income countries. However, it also lays out a roadmap to tackling this important challenge, one in which researchers and policymakers and the private sector and others can each contribute valuable pieces to the larger pool of knowledge. This collaboration, accompanied by thoughtful planning, can create an environment where people everywhere can rest assured about the safety of the food they eat.

Article by Delia Grace and Silvia Alonso, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

Originally posted on the ANH Academy website

Citations:
Grace, D., Dominguez-Salas, P., Alonso, S., Fahrion, A., Haesler, B., Heilmann, M., Hoffmann, V., Kang’ethe, E., Roesel, K. and Lore, T. 2018. Food safety metrics relevant to low and middle income countries: Working paper. Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy, Food Safety Working Group. London, UK: Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions programme.

Grace, D., Dominguez-Salas, P., Alonso, S., Fahrion, A., Haesler, B., Heilmann, M., Hoffmann, V., Kang’ethe, E., Roesel, K. and Lore, T. 2018. Food safety metrics relevant to low and middle income countries: Technical brief. Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy Food Safety Working Group. London, UK: Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions Programme.

 

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New project to tackle antimicrobial resistance in Vietnam’s pig sector

ILRI Asia

A two-year project that will assess veterinary health management and veterinary drug use in Vietnamese pig farms has been launched.

The Health and Antibiotics in the Vietnamese Pig Production Project, known as VIDAPIG, is a collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, the National Institute of Veterinary Research, the National Institute of Nutrition and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

It will carry out research to identify and evaluate factors affecting veterinary health and veterinary drug use with the aim of establishing antimicrobial usage practices that are based on a One Health approach across the smallholder pig sector.

The project will be implemented from February 2018 to January 2020 in Bac Ninh Province.

From left: Hung Nguyen, ILRI regional representative for East and Southeast Asia, Anders Dalsgaard from the University of Copenhagen, Pham Thi Ngoc, deputy director of the National Institute of Veterinary Research and Le Danh Tuyen, director…

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While some animal-transmitted diseases of the poor are declining, other, mostly foodborne, diseases are on the rise

ILRI Clippings

African clay pots (via the Dick Jemison Tribal Arts Collection).

‘. . . Around 70 percent of all infectious diseases are zoonotic, moving from animals—usually livestock—to humans, through either contact or the consumption of animal products and by-products. The International Livestock Research Institute estimates that 2.7 million people die from zoonotic diseases each year, while approximately 2.5 billion people get sick. To offer some sense of scale, a recent study led by Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary and former director of the National Economic Council at the White House, estimated that the costs of pandemic diseases—nearly all of which begin in animals—fall in the same range as those expected by climate change-related disasters.

‘”And yet only 4.5 percent of development money, of aid, goes to agriculture,” Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, executive director of the International Federation for Animal Health—the global trade association for leading animal pharmaceutical…

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#OneHealthDay: New research on Uganda’s urban pig value chain focuses on One Health from social science perspective

Cross-bred Pigs in Kiboga District, Uganda (photo credit: ILRI/Kristina Roesel).

Today is International One Health Day, an occasion celebrated around the world every year on 3 November to bring global attention to the need for One Health interactions and for the world to ‘see them in action’.

To mark this day, we highlight a new discussion paper published by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) that contributes towards a greater understanding of One Health from a largely overlooked social science perspective.

The report provides a summary of research conducted in 2016 in the peri-urban to urban pig value chain between Mukono District and Kampala in Uganda’s central region. Its focus is the zoonotic parasite Taenia solium, also referred to as the pork tapeworm, and cysticercosis, an infection with the larvae of T. solium. It highlights perceptions of T. solium and other pathogens associated with pigs as articulated by farmers, butchers, slaughterhouse workers, pork consumers and medical professionals.

Download the report, Pigs, people, pathogens: A qualitative analysis of the pig value chain in the central region of Uganda by Rebekah Thompson.

 

Lancet Countdown 2017 report shows climate change already damaging health of millions globally

The Lancet Countdown tracks progress on health and climate change and provides an independent assessment of the health effects of climate change, the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the health implications of these actions. The research evidence thus generated will help to inform decision-making and drive an accelerated policy response to climate change.

The initiative is a collaboration between 24 academic institutions and intergovernmental organizations based in every continent and with representation from a wide range of disciplines including climate scientists, ecologists, economists, social and political scientists, public health professionals and doctors.

The Lancet Countdown’s 2017 report tracks 40 indicators across five areas, arriving at three key conclusions:

• The human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible.
• The delayed response to climate change over the past 25 years has jeopardised human life and livelihoods.
• The past 5 years have seen an accelerated response, and in 2017 momentum is building across several sectors.

Visit the Lancet Countdown website for a thematic breakdown of the report. The full text of the Lancet Countdown 2017 report is available for free via The Lancet website.

Among the report’s co-authors are Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist and co-leader of the Animal and Human Health program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and Paula Dominguez-Salas, postdoctoral researcher in nutrition at the Royal Veterinary College on joint appointment at ILRI.