AAP PUBLIC DIALOGUE SERIES
One Health and Public Health in Africa
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
8-9:30am ET / 2-3:30pm CAT
Virtual Event
One Health (OH) recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.. The OH concept has now developed into an approach aimed at achieving common public health goals. One Health has taken a renewed importance, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic further demonstrating the need to fast-track the operationalization of One Health in strengthening the public health system’s resilience. For the most part, the discussions related to One Health have been held within the academic fraternity with limited engagements of governments or evidence of effective intersectoral cooperation and action. Furthermore, the few one health initiatives undertaken for disease prevention and control have had limited monitoring and evaluation of its health and food systems outcomes, making it challenging to effectively make a case to policy makers on the benefits of OH for promoting public health. There remains ongoing questions on what governance mechanism would best promote intersectoral cooperation and how best to operationalize the One Health approach, including scaling capacity-building for implementation in the global south that already have a high burden of zoonotic diseases and have experienced large disease outbreaks in the last decade. The implementation of OH in the Global south is an important component of global health security. Effective implementation and monitoring of OH in the African region should also be prioritized by both resource-constrained and resource-rich nations.
This panel brings together diverse voices from the frontlines of addressing OH implementation for strengthening public health and food systems resilience in a Global south context.
Co-moderators:
Wanda Markotter, Professor, Director Centre for Viral Zoonoses and DST-NRF South African Research Chair in Animal Infectious Diseases (Zoonoses), University of Pretoria
Lekan Ayo-Yusuf, Professor and Chairperson/Head: School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria
Featured panelists:
Wayne Ramkrishna, Deputy Director: Zoonotic Diseases, National Department of Health, South Africa
Yewande Alimi, AMR and One Health Program Coordinator, Africa Centres for Disease Control (CDC)
John David Kabasa, Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity (COVAB), Makerere University, & Director AFROHUN Academy, Africa One Health University Network (AFROHUN)
Fatimata Niang Diop, Professor, Institute of Environmental Sciences, University Cheikh Anta Diop & Vice Chair, AFROHUN Academy Research and Ethics Technical Working Group
Opening and closing remarks:
John Kaneene, Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology and Director for Comprehensive Epidemiology, Michigan State University
William Cunningham, Associate Dean Global Health, College of Osteopathic Medicine and Director, Institute for Global Health, Michigan State University
