Development of a One Health National Capacity in Africa : the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) One Health Virtual Centre Model.

Among the many challenges to health, infectious diseases stand out for their ability to have a profound impact on humans and animals. The recent years have witnessed an increasing number of novel infectious diseases. The numerous examples of infections which originated from animals suggest that the zoonotic pool is an important and potentially rich source of emerging diseases. Since emergence and re-emergence of pathogens, and particularly zoonotic agents, occur at unpredictable rates in animal and human populations, infectious diseases will constitute a significant challenge for the public health and animal health communities in the twenty-first century. The African continent suffers from one of the highest burdens of infectious diseases of humans and animals in the world but has the least capacity for their detection, identification and monitoring. Lessons learnt from recent zoonotic epidemics in Africa and elsewhere clearly indicate the need for coordinated research, interdisciplinary centres, response systems and infrastructures, integrated surveillance systems and workforce development strategies. More and stronger partnerships across national and international sectors (human health, animal health, environment) and disciplines (natural and social sciences) involving public, academic and private organisations and institutions will be required to meet the present and future challenges of infectious diseases. In order to strengthen the efficiency of early warning systems, monitoring trends and disease prediction and timely outbreak interventions for the benefit of the national and international community, it is essential that each nation improves its own capacity in disease recognition and laboratory competence. The SACIDS, a One Health African initiative linking southern African academic and research institutions in smart partnership with centres of science excellence in industrialised countries as well as international research centres, strives to strengthen Africa's capacity to detect, identify and monitor infectious diseases of humans and animals, to better manage health and socio-economic risks posed by them, and to improve research capacity in investigating the biologic, socio-economic, ecologic and anthropogenic factors responsible for emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases.

Practice of One Health approaches: bridges and barriers in Tanzania.

The practice of one health approaches in human and animal health programmes is influenced by type and scope of bridges and barriers for partnerships. It was thus essential to evaluate the nature and scope of collaborative arrangements among human, animal, and wildlife health experts in dealing with health challenges which demand inter-sectoral partnership. The nature of collaborative arrangement was assessed, and the respective bridges and barriers over a period of 12 months (July 20011 to June 2012) were identified. The specific objectives were to: (1) determine the proportion of health experts who had collaborated with other experts of disciplines different from theirs, (2) rank the general bridges for and barriers against collaboration according to the views of the health experts, and (3) find the actual bridges for and barriers against collaboration among the health experts interviewed. It was found that 27.0% of animal health officers interviewed had collaborated with medical officers while 12.4% of the medical officers interviewed had collaborated with animal health experts. Only 6.7% of the wildlife officers had collaborated with animal health experts. The main bridges for collaboration were instruction by upper level leaders, zoonotic diseases of serious impacts, and availability of funding. The main barriers for collaboration were lack of knowledge about animal/human health issues, lack of networks for collaboration, and lack of plans to collaborate. This thus calls for the need to curb barriers in order to enhance inter-sectoral collaboration for more effective management of risks attributable to infectious diseases of humans and animals.

A socio-economic approach to One Health policy research in southern Africa.

One-health approaches have started being applied to health systems in some countries in controlling infectious diseases in order to reduce the burden of disease in humans, livestock and wild animals collaboratively. However, one wonders whether the problem of lingering and emerging zoonoses is more affected by health policies, low application of one-health approaches, or other factors. As part of efforts to answer this question, the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) smart partnership of human health, animal health and socio-economic experts published, in April 2011, a conceptual framework to support One Health research for policy on emerging zoonoses. The main objective of this paper was to identify which factors really affect the burden of disease and how the burden could affect socio-economic well-being. Amongst other issues, the review of literature shows that the occurrence of infectious diseases in humans and animals is driven by many factors, the most important ones being the causative agents (viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc.) and the mediator conditions (social, cultural, economic or climatic) which facilitate the infection to occur and hold. Literature also shows that in many countries there is little collaboration between medical and veterinary services despite the shared underlying science and the increasing infectious disease threat. In view of these findings, a research to inform health policy must walk on two legs: a natural sciences leg and a social sciences one.

'One Health' infectious diseases surveillance in Tanzania: are we all on board the same flight?

Infectious diseases account for nearly 40% of the burden of human mortality and morbidity in low-income countries, of which 7% is attributable to zoonoses and 13% to recently emerging diseases from animals. One of the strategic approaches for effective surveillance, monitoring and control of infectious diseases compromising health in both humans and animals could be through a combination of multiple disciplines. The approach can be achieved through a joint effort from stakeholders comprising health professionals (medical and veterinary), social, economic, agricultural, environmental and other interested parties. With resource scarcity in terms of number of staff, skills and facility in low-income countries, participatory multi- sectoral and multidisciplinary approaches in limiting the burden of zoonotic diseases could be worthwhile. We review challenging issues that may limit the 'One Health' approach for infectious diseases surveillance in Tanzania with a focus on Health Policy and how best the human and animal health systems could be complemented or linked to suit the community in need for disease control under the theme's context.