But what are you "doing" over there?

I've realized that most of my blog posts have been more about some of the social and personal aspects of my life in Tanzania, rather than the professional ones.  In case you are interested in what SACIDS, the organization I work at, is all about, I am going to shamelessly re-post a blog entry I wrote for the Global Health Corps Fellows Blog. 

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One Health: Sounds good...what does it mean?

When I first arrived at SACIDS somewhere along the line of new information, concepts and acronyms I was introduce to the idea that SACIDS was a “One Health” organization.  Like a good and studious fellow when this was told to me I nodded and smiled; “One Health” sounded catchy, it sounded progressive, it sounded positive; I had no idea what it actually meant.    

Luckily, in the past few months I have become much more acquainted with not only the work of SACIDS, but how the overarching framework of “One Health” fits into that.  Simply stated, the concept of “One Health” means adopting an integrated approach between the human, animal and plant health sectors to addressing infectious disease threats. 

You can read much more about the official definition and how it was developed here, but in terms of SACIDS’ work, the concept of “One Health” often means trying to increase collaboration between the animal and human health sectors. 

In the United States, we may not think about animal health as having a large impact on human health, but in rural (or not so-rural) Tanzania, animals and humans intermingle on a daily basis.  This routine contact between animals and humans can create a big problem when animals develop diseases that then transfer to humans, or what are called zoonoses.  According to the Foresight Study, 70 to 80% of new/emerging infectious diseases of humans had originated from animals. Diseases such as avian influenza, swine flu or Rift Valley Fever are all diseases that have started in animals and transferred to humans. 

Yet, Tanzania, like most countries, has no official system for coordinating disease preparedness, surveillance or outbreak response across animal and health sectors.  Often when coordination does happen it is on an ad hoc basis, based largely on whether the person in the ministry of health happens to know their counterpart in the ministry of livestock (or vice versa). 

Adopting a “One Health” framework means not only looking at how infectious diseases develop, spread and could potentially be stopped in one sector, but rather taking a comprehensive approach to how a disease is likely to be transmitted and who or what is likely to be effected overall.  Improving coordination in preparedness planning, data exchange and outbreak response between the human and animal health sectors could potentially dramatically reduce the severity of an outbreak and save both human and animal lives.  

The concept of “One Health” is gaining traction, and just this past week the a new One Health Commission was announced in the US to increase coordination between the animal, human and environmental health sectors in addressing infectious diseases.   As scientists, veterinarians, epidemiologists and public health experts continue to work on mitigating the impact of infectious diseases in places all over the world, it’s exciting to be apart of an organization taking an innovative approach to enhancing those efforts here in southern Africa.