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.

 

Agrilinks hosts month-long focus on food safety

Fish market in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (photo credit: WorldFish/Jamie Oliver).

Agrilinks is an online community for food security and agricultural development practitioners. During the month of March 2018, Agrilinks shines the spotlight on the topic of food safety, with a series of feature articles and resources by food safety experts on how households and farmers can ensure the safety of their crops and animal-sourced foods and prevent post-harvest losses.

In her article, Delia Grace, joint program leader for Animal and Human Health at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), gives an overview of the food safety research activities of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). Grace also leads the A4NH flagship program on food safety.

She calls for collaborative approaches to knowledge-sharing towards improved food safety, nutrition and health of people throughout the world.

“Collaboration and knowledge-sharing will be key in addressing food safety challenges, and this collaboration must include the formal and informal markets, policymakers, researchers, and public and private sectors,” she says.

Read the article, Food safety: March spotlight needs year-round attention

 

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.

 

Behaviour change and biosciences necessary to tackle infectious zoonotic diseases – Uppsala Health Summit

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock

Photo credit: Fernanda Dórea

Research shows that six out of 10 emerging human infectious diseases are zoonoses. Thirteen zoonotic diseases sicken over 2 billion people and they kill 2.2 million each year, mostly in developing countries. Poor people are more exposed to zoonoses because of their greater contact with animals, less hygienic environments, lack of knowledge on hazards, and lack of access to healthcare. 80% of the burden of these zoonotic diseases thus falls on people in low and middle income countries.

A workshop at last week’s Uppsala Health Summit zoomed in on zoonotic diseases in livestock and ways to mitigate risk behaviour associated with their emergence and spread. Critical roles and behaviours of people and institutions in preventing, detecting and responding to zoonotic livestock diseases were identified – as well as necessary changes and incentives so we are well-prepared for infections long before they reach people.

These zoonotic infections…

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Could animals help solve the world’s ‘calorie’ as well as ‘hidden’ hunger?—ILRI’s Delia Grace on World Food Day

ILRI Clippings

The interview below, Could animal-sourced protein really solve the world’s hunger crisis?, of veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert Delia Grace, of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), was originally published in the Oct 2017 ‘Food and Nutrition Security’ issue of the monthly newsletter for Health for Animals. Both display quote graphics below are by Health for Animals.

Each year, 161 million children under the age of five lack the nutrients they require for their development.

This malnourishment causes stunting—both physical and cognitive—and ultimately costs our world 4.5 trillion US dollars in economic impacts each year.

In a world where extreme poverty has fallen in recent decades, this ‘hidden hunger’ can often be forgotten.

‘With such a huge problem to tackle and FAO’s World Hunger Day on October 16th, we spoke to Dr Delia Grace, Programme Director at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in…

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New project to strengthen food safety in Cambodia

ILRI Asia

A new initiative that will address growing food safety concerns in Cambodia was recently unveiled in the country.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems (LSIL), the ‘Safe Food Fair Food for Cambodia’ (SFFF Cambodia) project kicked off in a workshop held in Phnom Penh on 31 August and 1 September 2017.

The event brought together all the LSIL beneficiaries in Cambodia (on 31 August) and it was followed by an innovation platform (IP) meeting (on 1 September) that was attended by representatives from USAID, the government of Cambodia, research institutes and universities from Cambodia and the United States, researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and local and international livestock experts.

The innovation platform meeting on 1 September 2017 (photo credit: LSIL)

The IP meeting introduced the LSIL-funded research project to the livestock sector stakeholders in the country and sought stakeholder…

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