Proceedings

The benefits of ‘One Health’ for pastoralists in Africa

Helena Greter, Vreni Jean-Richard, Lisa Crump, Mahamat Béchir, Idriss O. Alfaroukh, Esther Schelling, Bassirou Bonfoh, Jakob Zinsstag
Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research | Vol 81, No 2 | a726 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ojvr.v81i2.726 | © 2014 Helena Greter, Vreni Jean-Richard, Lisa Crump, Mahamat Béchir, Idriss O. Alfaroukh, Esther Schelling, Bassirou Bonfoh, Jakob Zinsstag | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 05 December 2013 | Published: 23 April 2014

About the author(s)

Helena Greter, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland and University of Basel, Switzerland
Vreni Jean-Richard, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland and University of Basel, Switzerland
Lisa Crump, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland and University of Basel, Switzerland
Mahamat Béchir, Centre de Support en Santé Internationale, Chad
Idriss O. Alfaroukh, Institut de Recherche en Elevage pour le Développement, Chad
Esther Schelling, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland and University of Basel, Switzerland
Bassirou Bonfoh, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Côte d’Ivoire, Côte d'Ivoire
Jakob Zinsstag, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland and University of Basel, Switzerland

Abstract

‘One health’ is particularly suited to serve mobile pastoralists. Dinka pastoralists in Sudan inspired Calvin Schwabe to coin the term ‘one medicine’, indicating that there is no difference in paradigm between human and veterinary medicine. Our contemporary definition of ‘one health’ is any added value in terms of improved health of humans and animals or financial savings or environmental services resulting from a closer cooperation of human and animal health sectors. Here we present a summary of ‘one health’ studies with mobile pastoralists in Africa which were done in research partnership, demonstrating such an added value. Initial joint human and animal health studies revealed higher livestock vaccination coverage than in the pastoralist community, leading to joint animal and human vaccination intervention studies which demonstrated a better access to primary health care services for pastoralists in Chad. Further simultaneous animal and human serological studies showed that camel breeding was associated with human Q-fever seropositivity. In Borana communities in Ethiopia, human cases of  Mycobacterium bovis infection could be related to strains isolated from cattle. A challenge remained with regard to how to assess vaccination coverage in mobile populations. With the advent of mobile phones, health and demographic surveillance could be established for mobile pastoralists and their animals. This presents vast possibilities for surveillance and control of human and animal diseases. Pastoralists prefer a ‘one health’ approach and therefore contribute toward the validation of this concept by showing real added value of the cooperation between human and animal health services.


Keywords

One Health; Health services; zoonoses; mobile pastoralists

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Crossref Citations

1. Is a One Health Approach Utilized for Q Fever Control? A Comprehensive Literature Review
Md Rezanur Rahaman, Adriana Milazzo, Helen Marshall, Peng Bi
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health  vol: 16  issue: 5  first page: 730  year: 2019  
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16050730