ILRI joint appointee scientist awarded John Dillon Fellowship on agricultural research

Hung Nguyen-Viet, researcher at the Center for Public Health and Ecosystem Research (CENPHER) and joint appointee of the International Livestock Research Institute (photo credit: CENPHER/Hung Nguyen-Viet).

We are pleased to congratulate Hung Nguyen-Viet for being among 10 recipients of the 2013 John Dillon Memorial Fellowship of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

Hung is an environmental scientist at the Center for Public Health and Ecosystem Research (CENPHER) at the Hanoi School of Public Health and a joint appointee of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

The fellowship was set up in recognition of Professor John Dillon, one of Australia’s leading agricultural economists, and his life-long support for international agricultural research.

It provides career development opportunities for outstanding young agricultural scientists or economists from ACIAR partner countries who are involved in a current or recently completed ACIAR project.

Hung is currently involved in an ILRI project on reducing disease risks and improving food safety in smallholder pig value chains in Vietnam. The project is funded by ACIAR.

Through this fellowship, he will spend six weeks in Australia during February to March 2014 and take part in formal training in professional communication, leadership and research management, and visit various Australian research organizations.

 

ILRI scientist receives India’s prestigious Agriculture Leadership Award

Purvi Mehta-Bhatt receives the 2013 Agriculture Leadership Award from the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Shri BL Joshi. In the background is Prof MS Swaminathan, the architect of India’s Green Revolution (photo credit: ILRI/Purvi Mehta-Bhatt).

We are pleased to congratulate Purvi Mehta-Bhatt – the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) regional representative for South Asia – for being among 11 recipients of India’s Agriculture Leadership Awards for 2013.

The award was presented at a prestigious ceremony held on 19 September 2013 in New Delhi that was graced by the presence of Prof MS Swaminathan, the architect of India’s Green Revolution.

Mehta-Bhatt received the Woman Leadership Award in recognition of her leadership role in influencing crop and livestock policies in India and for her continued efforts in linking grassroots level issues to national, regional and international research and policy strategies.

Facilitated by Agriculture Today, India’s leading agriculture magazine, these national awards are presented to institutions and individuals for outstanding leadership in agriculture.

In addition to her role as head of ILRI’s research programs in South Asia, Mehta-Bhatt is one of the research activity leaders of One Health and Ecohealth in ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses program.

 

Call for abstracts: Global Development Symposium 2014

The Global Development Symposium 2014 takes place on 4–7 May 2014 at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Underscoring the critical links between human and animal health, the symposium will explore interdisciplinary approaches to improving public health and food security while empowering communities for lasting change.

Participants are expected to include social, environmental, medical and veterinary scientists as well as policymakers, students and community members who have an interest in positive global development.

The organizers of the symposium have issued a call for oral, poster and pitch for progress abstracts to be submitted up to 13 January 2014. 

The organizers will also support the travel costs of up to 15 delegates through the International Connections Scholarship supported by Aeroplan. Both professionals and students are encouraged to apply for these awards based on the following criteria:

• Preference will be given to those individuals from a developing nation or the Canadian North
• Demonstrated financial need as articulated through the application process
• If applying as a student, must be a full time student at a recognized college or university (a letter from the Department Chair of your institution must be included in the application submission)

Applications for scholarships will be accepted until 15 November 2013. 

Below are the expanded themes of the symposium

Theme 1: Global public health

• Ecosystem approaches to health
• Translating research to action to policy 
• One Health
• Educating the next generation of leaders
• Domestic, wild and feral animals 
• Crisis Intervention

Theme 2: Food and water security

• Sustaining communities
• Market integration
• Adding value to family agriculture
• Woman and children
• Climate change and health
• Water systems and infrastructure
• Human-animal interactions

Theme 3: Community empowerment

• Outcome assessment: qualitative and quantitative
• Stakeholder consultation, learning and sharing
• Participatory design, research, monitoring and evaluation
• Conservation, biodiversity and natural resource management
• Animals’ role in the community

Visit the symposium website for more information and details of how to register

 

ILRI-supported student successfully defends thesis on Salmonella in pork markets in Vietnam

Sinh Dang Xuan defends his Master of Veterinary Public Health thesis at the Chiang Mai University, Thailand. His research study was co-funded by the ILRI-led project “Ecosystem approaches to the better management of zoonotic emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia” (photo credit: ILRI/Fred Unger).

Congratulations are due to Sinh Dang Xuan on the successful defence of his Master of Veterinary Public Health thesis on 9 September 2013 at the Veterinary Public Health Centre for Asia Pacific, Chiang Mai University in Thailand. The course is a joint program of Freie Universität Berlin and Chiang Mai University.

His research study on quantifying Salmonella spp. in pig slaughterhouses and pork markets associated with human health in Hung Yen, Vietnam was co-funded by a project led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) on ecohealth approaches to managing zoonoses in Southeast Asia.

It is one of the first studies carried out in Vietnam combining quantitative and qualitative research methods on ecohealth approaches to food safety in pork value chains.

View the presentation

 

ILRI scientists present at Africa 2013 ecohealth conference

Smallholder livestock farming in the highlands of Ethiopia (ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

Over 15 scientists from the Food Safety and Zoonoses program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are among 250 participants attending the Africa 2013 Ecohealth Conference in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire. The ILRI team will give 20 oral presentations during two parallel sessions on risk analysis in ecohealth as well as five poster presentations.

The general objective of the conference, which runs from 1 to 5 October 2013, is to contribute to the sharing of knowledge among researchers, health practitioners and policymakers on integrated and transdisciplinary studies that are related to health within the framework of adaptations to global changes.

This is the first-ever joint conference of leading African and intercontinental scientific societies dedicated or working to improve public health and ecology. The conference is jointly organized by the following institutions:

• Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS)
• Communauté de Pratiques en Ecosanté de l’Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre (COPES-AOC)
• Ecohealth Network of East and Southern Africa
• International Association for Ecology  and Health
• University of Benin
• University of Côte d’Ivoire

More information is available on the conference website.

 

Enhancing food safety through agriculture: Science Forum examines different approaches

Moses Osiru pitches his integrated approach to aflatoxins

On 23 and 24 September, the CGIAR Science Forum 2013 on ‘Nutrition and health outcomes: targets for agricultural research’ featured a parallel session on food safety.

It was organized by Delia Grace from the International Livestock Research Institute as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)

Delia opened the session arguing the case for agricultural interventions for food safety.

The session drew on examples of aflatoxin control as an example of agriculture-based interventions for human health.

Five speakers ‘pitched’ their research initiatives to a panel representing investors and the audience. The pitches led in to a discussion on priorities to achieve health outcomes through research on food safety.

Poisons produced by fungi

IITA’s Fen Beed introduced participants to aflatoxins – poisons produced by Aspergillus species and infecting crops like maize, groundnut, nuts, spices and many others.  Depending on the degree of contamination in food and feed, they cause death, cancer, immuno-suppression and stunting of children. They are passed from mothers to babies; and from feed to milk. Due to the risks to human and animal health, international trade strictly regulates contamination levels of products that may be affected by aflatoxins. Mitigation of aflatoxins is therefore both a food safety and a market access issue.

Five mitigation approaches

The aflatoxin challenge was used as a focus to bring together and assess 5 current approaches to mitigation:

• Breeding aflatoxin-resistant maize: George Mahuku, CIMMYT
• Biological control of aflatoxins: Peter Cotty, University of Arizona
• Integrated management of aflatoxins in maize and groundnuts: Ranajit Bandyopadhyay, IITA
• Genetic enhancement of groundnuts to resist aflatoxins, Hari Upadhyaya: ICRISAT
• Integrated groundnut aflatoxin management:  Moses Osiru, ICRISAT

The role of research investors was taken by Laurian Unnevehr (IFPRI), Tom Randolph (Livestock and Fish research program) and Wycliffe Kumwenda (National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi). The panelists challenged the presenters on the science and potential large scale impact of their approaches. As part of the exercise, the investor panel and the audience ‘invested’ token funds in each initiative as a device to surface different perspectives. After the counting, the investment portfolio of the panel was quite different to that of the audience.

Tom Randolph: “The investors were attracted most to the two integrated control programs, one rolling out a generic control program across crops and across Africa, and the other supporting improved control for groundnuts in southern Africa. These demonstrated thoughtful attention to a mix of control strategies and the incentives that will be needed to ensure uptake and sustained provision and use by focusing on enabling policies and partnership with the private sector. The investors didn’t ignore the other research efforts, however! They also invested in further development of the control technologies themselves: biocontrol and breeding for aflatoxin resistance in maize and groundnuts. It was recognized that investments in these efforts serve to complement those that should be demonstrating the commitment of the private sector for taking up biocontrol and the research investments in the other breeding drivers for drought resistance and yield. The session helped to underline the need to better demonstrate our potential for short term benefits while ensuring an appropriate balance of longer term discovery research.”

Reflections

Delia Grace: “With nearly one billion hungry and two billion suffering from the hidden hunger caused by micro-nutrient deficiency, there is massive interest in the role of agriculture in better feeding poor people. However, food security is not enough. The food that feeds us also sickens and kills us. Food-borne disease is the single most common disease in the world, causing around 5 billion episodes of gastrointestinal illness a year. Diarrhoea (between one third and two thirds related to food) is among the top killers of children in most poor countries. This session focused on the role of agricultural research in improving the safety of food in poor countries.

Among the important messages were:

• Building strong links with public health, including Food Safety authorities is important;
• Food safety in informal markets is often neglected: strong evidence on cost and benefits is needed to convince policy makers;
• Innovations have great potential for improving food safety;
• In informal markets and subsistence systems, we need models for effective governance;
• CGIAR food safety research can have impact by linking with commodity and system CRPs.”

The presentations

• Research for agricultural approaches in farm to fork management of food safety
• What are aflatoxins?
• Integrated management of Aflatoxins in groundnuts
• Biological control of aflatoxins
• Integrated groundnut aflatoxin management
• Managing aflatoxin contamination of maize through breeding
• Genetic enhancement of groundnut for resistance to aflatoxin contamination

 

International symposium features One Health initiative in Southeast Asia

Farmer Ma Thi Puong feeds her pigs on her farm near the northern town of Mieu Vac, Vietnam (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

One Health is an interdisciplinary approach to combating emerging infectious diseases by addressing the complex interactions of human health, animal health and the environment.

The One Health approach encourages the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, regionally and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment.

Seventy-five per cent of all new, emerging or re-emerging diseases affecting humans at the beginning of the 21st century originated in animals.These zoonotic diseases present serious public health, economic and development challenges.

The subject of One Health took centre stage during the August 2013 International Symposium of Health Sciences (i-SIHAT 2013) held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In a keynote presentation at the start of the symposium, Hung-Nguyen Viet – a researcher at the Center for Public Health and Ecosystem Research (CENPHER) at the Hanoi School of Public Health who is on a joint appointment at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) – discussed a regional One Health initiative in Southeast Asia and how this integrated approach is working to develop the capacity of universities to respond to the threat of emerging infectious diseases.

View the presentation, One Health – an interdisciplinary approach in combating emerging diseases

 

FoodAfrica research studies featured during ILRI seminar on aflatoxins

Maize contaminated with aflatoxin (photo credit: IITA).

On 22 August 2013, the Biosciences eastern and central Africa hub at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses program hosted a half-day seminar on the current status on aflatoxin research and management at ILRI.

The open forum was an opportunity for different working groups to engage in discussions on the ongoing and planned research projects. The seminar brought together some 30 participants and a total of 13 presentations were given on aflatoxin assessment, diagnostics, analysis and mitigation.

Aflatoxins are highly toxic metabolites produced by the mould Aspergillus flavus and known to cause suppression of the immune system, liver disease and death in both humans and animals.

Aspergillus can grow in a wide range of foods and feed and thrive under favourable growth conditions of high temperature and moisture content. Aflatoxins from contaminated animal feed can end up in milk.

Three research studies that are part of the project Measuring and mitigating the risk of mycotoxins in maize and dairy products for poor consumers in Kenya (MyDairy project) were featured during the seminar.

The goal of the MyDairy project – the fifth of seven work packages of the FoodAfrica program – is to reduce the risk of mycotoxin contamination of staple crops in Kenya.

ILRI graduate fellow Anima Sirma presented an overview of her planned PhD research on risk assessment of aflatoxins in the Kenyan dairy value chain. The objectives of the study are to characterize the key risks of aflatoxins, identify the best control options and provide risk managers with information for decision-making.

Daniel Senerwa, another ILRI graduate fellow working towards a PhD, presented his proposed research that seeks to quantify the economic costs of aflatoxins in the Kenyan dairy value chain and examine the cost effectiveness of mitigation strategies.

Sirma and Senerwa are veterinary scientists and are undertaking their PhD studies at the University of Nairobi’s Faculty of Veterinary Sciences.

Sara Ahlberg, a dairy technologist from Finland and ILRI associate research officer, presented an overview of her work on a novel biological method to mitigate aflatoxin-induced risks in food and feed with dairy-derived proteins and peptides and lactic acid bacteria that have the ability to bind aflatoxins or inhibit the growth of mycotoxin-producing moulds.

Download the seminar report

 

International conference features risk assessment of raw milk consumption in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Sale of raw milk at Port-Bouët market in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (photo credit: ILRI/Sylvie Mireille Kouamé-Sina).

Every day, some 652 consumers of raw milk in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire are exposed to the risk of gastro-intestinal infection caused by harmful milk-borne bacteria, a study has shown. The study was done under the collaborative Safe Food, Fair Food project which is led by International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

As is the case in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, milk in the informal or traditional market in Côte d’Ivoire is often sold raw. Many consumers routinely boil milk before drinking it, thus eliminating the health risk presented by milk-borne pathogens. However, some choose to consume the milk raw without any form of heat treatment. Unhygienic handling and storage of milk can also compromise the quality of raw milk sold to consumers.

Sylvie Mireille Kouamé-Sina, an Ivorian researcher at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS), led the study on bacterial risk assessment of informally marketed milk in Abidjan.

Just over half (51.6%) of sampled milk consumers in Abidjan reportedly drank their milk raw. The main disease-causing bacteria isolated from the marketed raw milk were E. coli, Enterococcus sp. and Staphylococcus aureus. These species were found in about 58% of samples of informally marketed milk.

A risk model revealed that consumers of raw milk in Abidjan have a 30% chance of drinking milk that is not microbiologically safe. For this reason, boiling of informally marketed milk is recommended as a risk-mitigation strategy against milk-borne pathogenic bacteria.

Kouamé-Sina presented these findings during a poster session at the 5th Congress of European Microbiologists (FEMS 2013) which was held on 21-25 July 2013 in Leipzig, Germany. The international conference brought together 2270 participants from 70 countries across all continents. Africa was represented by 27 participants from Côte d’Ivoire (1), Egypt (2), Nigeria (11), South Africa (12) and Tunisia (1).

Various topics on the latest advances in microbiology and biotechnology were discussed, including microbial food safety, trends in pathogen monitoring, viral ecology and evolution, new perspectives in bioenergy, and microbial interactions and climate change.

“The conference was a very interesting forum for thousands of international microbiologists from Europe and around the world to assess the current status of techniques used in microbiology,” said Kouamé-Sina.

“It was especially useful for young scientists as it allowed for interaction with leading researchers and exchange of knowledge and information on the latest advances in microbiology,” she added.

View the poster, Bacterial risk assessment of milk produced locally in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

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Read more about ILRI’s research on food safety in informal markets.

 

Vietnamese journal publishes special issue on risk assessment in health research in Vietnam

The Vietnamese Journal of Preventive Medicine has published a special edition on risk assessment for health research in Vietnam. The June 2013 special edition is a compilation of over 10 original research papers on the application of risk analysis to the management of animal, human and environmental health in Vietnam. The subject of training and capacity development in health risk assessment in Vietnam is also featured.

Risk analysis is a scientific, risk-based approach to assessing the health effects and economic impacts of various hazards (for example, disease-causing microorganisms in food or chemical pollutants in water) in order to develop appropriate interventions to mitigate the health risks posed by the hazards, thus ensuring that people, animals and the environment are safe.

Risk analysis comprises three components: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. In the developed world, risk assessment is widely applied and used as a tool for risk management, thanks to the availability and accessibility of large databases of diseases.

However, many developing countries – including Vietnam – do not have the research data and risk analysis expertise needed to be able to adequately inform policymaking on risk-based approaches to health management.

The research papers featured in the special issue provide insights into the current status of research on risk analysis in Vietnam, specifically, risk assessment of the health impacts of Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes in the pork value chain in Hanoi, arsenic contamination in drinking water in Hanam Province, dioxin contamination in food in Da Nang and pesticide residues in farms in Thai Binh.

The work is a result of the collaborative efforts of the Vietnamese Journal of Preventive Medicine and the Center for Public Health and Ecosystem Research (CENPHER) at the Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH).

Among the co-authors of the research papers are Delia Grace and Lucy Lapar, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and Hung Nguyen-Viet who leads research at CENPHER-HSPH and is a joint appointee of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and ILRI.

The papers are in Vietnamese with abstracts available in English. Listed below are the titles of the papers.

• Risk assessment and health research in Vietnam (editorial)
• Risk assessment of Salmonella in pork in Hanoi, Vietnam
• Food-borne hazards in a transforming pork value chain in Hanoi: Basis for future risk assessments
• Health risk due to exposure to chlorpyrifos for farmers in Thai Binh: Probabilistic risk assessment
• Risk assessment of arsenic contamination in tube-well drinking water in Hanam Province
• Environmental health risk assessment of dioxin in foods in Da Nang dioxin hot spot
• Prevalence of Salmonella contamination in pig and pork at farms and slaughterhouses in the northern provinces of Vietnam
• Air pollution as a health issue in Hanoi, Vietnam: An opportunity for intensified research to inform public policy
• Environmental health risk communication: Concept, principles and challenges
• Training and research programs in health risk assessment in Vietnam
• Task force of risk assessment for food safety in Vietnam: Linking science to policy to increase food safety and livelihood generation of the poor farmer
• Research projects on health risk assessment implemented by the Hanoi School of Public Health

The special edition also includes news on risk assessment training in Vietnam and reviews of two books on risk assessment.

For more information on this special edition, please contact Hung Nguyen-Viet (hung.nguyen @ unibas.ch).