One Health: Livestock, People, Environments

Discontinuation of posts to this blog

noreply@blogger.com (ILRI) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:26:00 +0000

We highly appreciate your interest to this blog, but have redirected all future posts to www.ilri.org

Swine Flu in Egypt; Panic or foresight?

noreply@blogger.com (DorineA) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Egyptian officials are being unusually zealous in their battle for public health

EGYPTIANS blame their government for many things, but they cannot say it has failed to rise to the threat of swine flu. In May it ordered the mass slaughter of Egypt’s 200,000-odd pigs. Since the summer, masked health officials have screened the country’s airports, hauling some 800 feverish-looking visitors off to quarantine on arrival. In August the government banned anyone under 25 or over 60 from making the pilgrimage to Mecca, in a bid to keep the more vulnerable safe at home.

Read more... (The Economist)

2009 World economic and social survey: Promoting the environment, saving the planet

noreply@blogger.com (DorineA) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:51:00 +0000

A United Nations report recommends a new Marshall Plan of more than $500 billion per year, or one per cent of global output, to help developing countries ease the impact of global warming and adjust to its effects while continuing on a path of economic growth. For every rise of one degree in global temperature, the annual average growth in developing countries drops betweens two and three percentage points with little impact on advanced countries.

However, to satisfy development needs, energy demands will have to rise in developing countries, posing a challenge in how to combine the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions with economic objectives. The World Economic and Social Survey suggests that market solutions, including the development of a carbon market, through “cap and trade” mechanisms or taxation schemes in developed countries, are not the solution for developing countries. Rather, it recommends a combination of large-scale investments and active government policy interventions for developing countries.

Among the possible multilateral measures in support of a global investment programme set out in the report is the creation of a global clean energy fund, a global feed-in tariff regime in support of renewable energy sources, a climate technology programme and a more balanced intellectual property regime for aiding the transfer of clean energy technology. Currently, the financing needed to meet the climate challenge that is available to developing countries from bilateral and multilateral sources is estimated at about $21 billion. That amount will have to rise manifold, and sooner rather than later. This is a daunting challenge.

read more...

A new deal on climate change

noreply@blogger.com (CCO_umn) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:03:00 +0000

Six months before the Copenhagen summit on climate change, the UK is calling for all countries to press for an ambitious deal that puts the needs of the world's poorest at its heart.

DFID is committing more resources than ever before to tackle climate change in the world's poorest countries. We want to see an agreement which takes action to limit global temperature increases, action to help developing countries adapt to climate change, and a deal which supports the transformation to a low-carbon economy worldwide.

Read our feature for an overview of why a new deal on climate change is so important for the world's poor, and for climate change case studies and facts

Or visit the Act on Copenhagen website, which sets out the government's ideas and commitments on climate change, and sign up to back the British bid at Copenhagen 2009.

Visit www.dfid.gov.uk for more information

Swine Flu Science: First Wiki, Then Publish

noreply@blogger.com (CCO_umn) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:03:00 +0000

Here’s a vision of how science may work in the future.

Last month I scrambled to write a story about the evolution of swine flu for the New York Times. I talked to some of the top experts on the evolution of viruses who were, at that very moment, analyzing the genetic material in samples of the virus isolated around the world. One scientist, whom I reached at home, said, “Sure, I’ve got a little time. I’m just making some coffee while my computer crunches some swine flu. What’s up?”

All of the scientists were completely open with me. They didn’t wave me off because they had to wait until their results were published in a big journal. In fact, they were open with the whole world, posting all their results in real-time on a wiki. So everyone who wanted to peruse their analysis could see how it developed as more data emerged and as they used different methods to analyze it.

Now, a little over a month later, they’re publishing their results in the journal Nature. Normally we press folks would get a press release about the paper a week before publication, and it would be under strict embargo till it appeared in the journal. This morning, however, I got a press release pointing me to the published paper. And while Nature normally requires you to subscribe to read a paper, the flu paper is published under a Creative Commons license, which means anyone can get it and use it under the license’s terms.

Google Eyes New Philanthropy Tack as Charity Chief Resigns

noreply@blogger.com (CCO_umn) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:54:00 +0000

The head of Google’s charity unit is stepping down to become the technology giant’s “chief philanthropy evangelist,” a move that could represent a shift from traditional grant making in the firm’s philanthropic approach, The New York Times reports.

Announcing the move on a company blog, Larry Brilliant signaled a greater emphasis on Google.org projects developed with company engineers, such as data-based efforts to track flu outbreaks or individual energy use.

While the unit has “been able to support some remarkable nonprofit organizations,” Mr. Brilliant wrote, “our greatest impact has come when we’ve attacked problems in ways that make the most of Google’s strengths in technology and information.”

Read about an interview with Mr. Brilliant that The Chronicle conducted when he first took the Google job.)

(Free registration is required to view the New York Times article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

Fears of a global rise in infectious conditions may be unfounded.

noreply@blogger.com (CCO_umn) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:52:00 +0000

Nature
09 Apr 2009
Disease in a warming climate
Fears of a global rise in infectious conditions may be unfounded.
Lila Guterman

Climate change may lead diseases such as malaria to change their geographical ranges.WHO/TDR/S.Lindsay Climate change takes the blame for many dim future prospects: rising sea levels, more frequent droughts and disappearing glaciers, to name just a few. But perhaps the warming trend should be absolved of responsibility for a predicted bump in the global burden of infectious disease.

That's the bottom line of a paper in the April issue of the journal Ecology, which argues that the geographical ranges of infectious diseases are more likely to shift than to expand (K. D. Lafferty Ecology 90, 888–900; 2009). "You often see a list of the 12 terrible things that are going to happen with climate change, and increases in infectious diseases is often on that list," says Kevin Lafferty, an ecologist with the US Geological Survey in Santa Barbara, California. But data from diseases such as yellow fever and malaria, he says, provide "a different reality".

Five other papers in the same issue of the journal respond to Lafferty's work, with widely varying views. Sarah Randolph, a parasite ecologist at the University of Oxford, UK, agrees with Lafferty and says that focusing on climate change can distract scientists and public-health agencies from the actual reasons that infectious diseases spread.

But Mercedes Pascual, a disease ecologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says that other causes are themselves often affected by climate change. To polarize the causes as climate versus anything else is, she says, "not helpful".

Gloomy predictions

Work in the mid- to late 1990s suggested that warming temperatures would prompt infectious diseases to sweep across the globe. For instance, a 1999 report by Britain's Royal Society called Climate Change and Human Health predicted that by 2020, the incidence of malaria would have risen by 60%. But ecologists now say that those studies were too simplistic, having failed to take into account the fact that even a large increase in temperature can result in a very small chance of disease in areas where disease transmission is very low.

Still, says Lafferty, the idea has been hard to shake. As the planet warms, insects and other disease carriers can move into higher latitudes and altitudes that were previously too cold. According to Lafferty, some of the warmer parts of the disease's current range may become too hot. Besides, the vectors may not find appropriate host animals in expanded ranges, because biodiversity tends to decline away from the tropics.

Critics charge that Lafferty's arguments are flawed. Most climate predictions suggest a greater rise in minimum temperatures, such as night-time or winter temperatures, than in maximum temperatures, points out Richard Ostfeld, an animal ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. Because of that, disease carriers may remain comfortable in their current ranges. Andrew Dobson, an infectious-disease ecologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, adds that the lower diversity of hosts in new ranges could actually pose a problem for humans because the vectors may choose to bite or sting humans and their livestock, rather than wild animals.

Besides, says Pascual, even if the range of a disease shifts rather than expands, the effect on human health is still likely to worsen dramatically. For instance, the high-altitude areas of Africa that are currently free of malaria have much larger populations than the low-lying malarious regions. People in the highlands are also less like to have acquired immunity, and so may be affected more by the disease. "It does matter if we get three million more cases in the highlands versus a much smaller contraction [of cases] somewhere else," she says.

Changing range

Paul Epstein, a doctor and public-health expert at Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, says that people are likely to move in large numbers because of climate change, often increasing the population density in already-crowded areas such as Africa's highlands. The implications of shifting disease ranges, he says, are not that "everything balances out. There are much more profound impacts."

Scientists are also arguing over whether recent examples of rises in infectious disease can be pinned on climate change. Lafferty and Randolph say that agriculture, travel and shipping, drug and pesticide resistance, and other economic and social factors may all have a larger role than climate. "There is not a single case of upsurge or emergence of an infectious disease that can be shown to be due to climate change," Randolph says. She and Pascual have each studied increases in malaria in the East Africa highlands in the past few decades and come to opposing conclusions about whether the climate data mirror the disease rise.

The key to settling these questions, many scientists say, is finding long-term data sets that include information on both disease and climate. Because of ecosystem dynamics and the complexity of disease, generalizing over large regions will always be fraught. "What happens in one place may not specifically predict what's going to happen in another place," says David Relman, a microbiologist and infectious-disease specialist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who chaired a 2008 Institute of Medicine report Global Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events on similar topics. "These are really big unanswered questions. You'll find a lot of opinion, but we don't have a lot of data."

Professor Anthony Costello: climate change biggest threat to humans

noreply@blogger.com (CCO_umn) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:36:00 +0000

May 14, 2009
Professor Anthony Costello: climate change biggest threat to humans
Sam Lister, Health Editor

Climate change poses the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century but its full impact is not being grasped by the healthcare community or policymakers, a medical report concludes.

The report, compiled by a commission of academics from University College London and published in The Lancet, warns that climate change risks huge death tolls caused by disease, food and water shortages and poor sanitation.

The authors said that the NHS would face serious incremental pressures from heat and hygiene-related illnesses because of increasingly hot summers, greater pathogen spread with warmer temperatures, and the heightened risk of flooding.

Professor Anthony Costello, a paediatrician and director of UCL Institute for Global Health, said that he had not realised the full ramifications of climate change on health until 18 months ago.
Related Links

* Yes, we can solve the energy crisis

* Will climate change Bill blow Obama off course?

* Climate change remains agenda priority

Describing the threat as a "clear and present danger" that would affect billions of lives, he said that the world needed a 21st-century public health movement to deal with climate change. He added that failure to act will result in future generations feeling the same moral outrage as is felt today towards those "who brought in and did nothing to stop slavery".

"The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation," Professor Costello, the commission leader, said. "The impacts will be felt not just in the UK, but all around the world — and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children."

The UCL Lancet Commission focused on six areas for their report, Managing the health effects of climate change: patterns of disease and mortality, food security, water and sanitation, shelter and human settlements, extreme events, and population migration.

The commission considered a number of ways that climate change could affect health. Changing patterns of disease and mortality would emerge in a greater rate of transmission and geographic spread of traditionally tropical endemic diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

Heat will also have a serious effect on mortality, as will food and water security, with scientists predicting that crop yields could drop by 17 per cent with a 1C change in temperature.

Professor Costello said that the health lobby "had come to the issue late and should be saying more".

The commission said that there was the need for health leaders to join the debate on mitigation strategies — policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change — and emphasise the importance of action. It added that there must be a focus on health systems, in particular the inequalities between developed and developing nations, and a drive by healthcare professionals to outline how adopting low-carbon lifestyles can improve human health, reducing obesity, heart and lung disease, diabetes and stress.

"We believe that all the main players — health, political, scientific, technological, and civil society must come together," Professor Costello said. "We have laid out a framework for action, and we have called for a collation of information on the health effects of climate change. We need a new 21st-century public health movement to deal with climate change."

An international team of researchers, led by Professor Sir Andrew Haines from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is investigating the potential health benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The results of the study will inform the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December this year.

Professor Mark Maslin, director of UCL’s Environment Institute and a co-author, said that it should act as "Stern Report for Health and for medics", in reference to the economic review of climate change conducted by Sir Nicholas Stern.

Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, added: "This really hasn’t been an issue on the table for anyone in health over the last 10 years. They must take a leading part in this debate."

Kenya Climate and Health Working Group established

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:17:00 +0000

As one of the follow-ups to our Africa-wide Climate and Health Challenge Dialogue, the organizing team has provided all the resources developed during the Dialogue process to support a new Kenya Climate and Health Working Group.

Their first planning/stakeholder workshop was held 8-9 December 2008 at the PanAfric hotel in Nairobi.

Patti Kristjanson presented 'Linking Climate and Health Research to Reduce Africa's Infectious Disease Burden: Lessons from an African Challenge Dialogue' summarizing the Challenge Dialogue process and outputs and potential usefulness for the Kenya Working Group.

Christine Jost gave a presentation on 'Climate and Zoonoses Adaptation and Mitigation - Learning from Rift Valley Fever and Avian Influenza (HPAI)'. She discussed an example of the implementation of a one health concept in Kenya, i.e. the use of a decision support tool jointly developed by FAO, ILRI and others that has been applied recently by a technical group made up of veterinary and public health members (over 10 departments/insitutions in all) in response to a climate prediction that the conditions for Rift Valley Fever are once again very high for this year and early next year in Kenya. She also discussed some of ILRI/partner's lessons regarding risk mapping and adaptation and mitigation efforts and approaches regarding avian influenza, H5N1 HPAI.

Links to the Media Clippings

noreply@blogger.com (Gracie) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:46:00 +0000

Deadly fever likely to hit again, warns UN
Daily Nation; 30 September 2008

Climate Change may lead to new diseases in Africa
The East African; September 28 2008

World leaders embrace goal of ending Malaria deaths by 2015
Washington Post; September 26 2008

Climate change to spread diseases, Scientists warn
Business Daily; September 26 2008

Detect epidemics before they start
Wired News, USA; September 22 2008

Work Together Or Face 'Disastrous Consequences' For Health In Africa, Experts Warn
Science Daily; September 22 2008

Experts warn climate change could cause health disaster
Voice of America (VOA); 19 September 19 2008

Climate, health experts warn of “Disastrous Consequences” if each worked separately
Africa Science News Service; September 19 2008

Mobiles combat Kenyan Polio outbreak
BBC News, 18 September 2008

Google's Philanthropy arm leads effort to use weather data to fight diseases
New York Times; September 01 2008

Reflections on the workshop

noreply@blogger.com (patti) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:00 +0000

Well, I think our workshop was a huge success! It built upon our dialogue to date (including ideas from people that weren't at the workshop) and I’d like to thank all the participants for their enthusiastic and numerous contributions.

The Challenge for the Workshop was ‘to engage a diverse set of participants in the further exploration of the challenge we have set out for ourselves (linking climate and health to reduce Africa’s infectious disease burden) and in designing collaborative actions that will improve our response to this burden’.

As reported in Progress Report #1 our Working Proposition was revised on the basis of the feedback from the Challenge Dialogue, as:

Links among climate and human health and animal health are significant. A changing and more variable climate poses increasing risks to human health and well being. For example, rising temperatures are expected to lead to an expansion of the range, incidence and impact of many infectious diseases. We expect that climate and health specialists across Africa can improve their effectiveness through better collaboration and that collaboration across these communities can improve Africa’s capacity to predict, prevent and mitigate the impacts of climate-sensitive infectious diseases, largely by dramatically improving early warning and response times.

The 50 or so workshop participants, from all over the world and from a broad range of disciplines and experiences, reinforced the validity of this working proposition through their discussions of several case studies, including malaria, bird flu and Rift Valley Fever, that exemplified the need for strong linkages and better communication between communities, climate/environmental, human and animal health researchers and practitioners if we are to improve responses to infectious diseases in Africa.

The presentations and participants’ comments are on this blog. In addition to networking and relationship building, we started out with 3 objectives for the Workshop. They are closely aligned with the revised Expected Outcomes in the Progress Report. In addition to further exploration of this complex challenge, the group was challenged to start to identify some concrete actions aimed at improving our ability to respond to climate sensitive infectious diseases across Africa and further develop:
1. Common Conceptual Frameworks for a Shared Vision and Collaboration – to develop a draft framework(s) that portrays an integrated, holistic and interdisciplinary view of climate, infectious diseases, human health, animal health and disease vectors.
2. Collaborative Project Opportunities – to identify and develop opportunities for collaborative projects and initiatives that in particular can apply and leverage multi-inter-disciplinary expertise, knowledge, tools and resources.
3. Networks and Communities of Practice – to explore and design ways in which the participants and their organizations might form informal, self-forming networks where people with shared interests and values can come together and interact for various purposes (e.g., collaborative project support teams, knowledge alliances, learning communities, shared resource opportunities, etc.)

During the workshop, several other action areas were proposed, including:

Data, information, tools and knowledge management - we need to be able to ‘cross-query’ the data we’re collecting!

Taking stock: existing initiatives, data, models, capacity and gaps

Bridging gaps between community needs for information and what knowledge scientists are generating; make indigenous knowledge available and used!

A flagship collaborative project for this group – e.g. initiative supporting African ‘one-health’ PhD’s

A declaration/accord – one page that articulates this group’s understanding and strategic intent to move forward

We have already made progress on many of these objectives – e.g. we have several conceptual frameworks that are being refined after receiving feedback from the workshop group; we have started a list of organizations and initiatives involved in climate and health issues across Africa; we have put together an annotated bibliography and compilation of key documents.

We had stimulating examples of the role technologies can play in improving knowledge and response to diseases – the Digital Villages being established across Kenya by Virtual City; how Google Earth and other Google applications can improve communication, networking and visual presentation of things like climate change (picture a Minister watching a 3-D map and seeing parts of his country turn from yellow to orange to red over the next 50 years as average temperatures or variability in rainfall increase; or a map showing where the poor are with where the health facilities or water sources are found); and how Health Map is already showing disease outbreaks globally in real time. We learned how outcome mapping is a powerful tool for showing how outcomes in one sector are linked to outcomes in other sectors, and can inform strategies for change towards ambitious goals such as the one we’ve set ourselves. We saw how a highly collaborative effort on surveillance, forecasting, preparedness and response to malaria is working in southern Africa, providing evidence of our hypothesis that improved collaboration and integrated approaches make a difference. And while we were cautioned by our community leaders on concerns regarding language (e.g. making the results and implications of climate models more easily understandable) and poor infrastructure, a memorable moment came when Mary Nakirya (BROSDI) described a rural woman in Uganda googling ‘cabbages + Kampala’!

The organizing committee is now synthesizing the numerous ideas that came up during the workshop in the other areas and will be posting and sending out a second Progress Report within the next few weeks.

So, our journey continues....

We'd love to hear your thoughts! Please share them by using the 'comments' facility on this blog!

Links to key documents...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:35:00 +0000

Here's the list of key documents so far.....

Annotated bibliography on Climate and Disease (by author, in alphabetical order)

The Prospectus (May 2008)

The Challenge P aper (May 2008)

Progress Report #1 (August 2008)

The Workshop Workbook: Linking Climate and Health Research to Reduce Africa ’s Infectious Disease Burden: An exploratory dialogue (September 2008)

We'll keep updating the list here!

Here's the presentations!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:09:00 +0000

This picture, taken outside a school near Axum, Tigray, Ethiopia in 2005, captures the feeling and optimism at the workshop! David Rogers, thanks for the photo from your presentation!

Phil Thornton - Where are we heading with climate science projections for improving infectious disease response?

Andrew Githeko - How can we get the knowledge benefit from recent advances in climate science and observation? Botswana case study

Stephen Connor - How can we get the knowledge benefit from recent advances in climate science and observation? Ethiopia case study

Andrew Githeko - From concept to practice: Developing the malaria epidemic prediction

Jeff Mariner: Lessons learnt from the HPAI response

John Waibochi - Community 'Digital Villages' concept

David Rogers - Science and development: The bigger picture (this is a big 6.7MB file)

Economists and greens now talking ‘adaptation’

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:07:00 +0000

An article in this week’s Economist (UK) reports that environmentalists and economists are now coming round to the idea of adaptation rather than just talking about climate change prevention. This new focus on 'coping' is manifesting in a number of private and public sector projects. But even if poor countries do get adaptation money, there will be tough choices over how to use it. For example, if infectious diseases are rising, do you spend money trying to eradicate the worst ones, like malaria, or do you spend it on health and nutrition in general? No doubt everyone will be divided over the ‘right answer’.

Caroline gives a community perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:12:00 +0000

Caroline Nyamai Kisia from Action Africa Help International (AAHI) said she was encouraged to see so much climate and health expertise in one room focusing on African diseases. What she wants is for this knowledge to be translated into practical things that can help communities on the ground - something that people can add to their armoury against climate and diseases.

Caroline says she's an optimist. From a community perspective, she knows that much of the knowledge and technology is already out there.

I'm sure the next time there is an outbreak of RVF, we will control it much better. I ask you to reduce the gap between your specialized knowledge and the action that could help.

If I were a minister and had all the good data in the world, and limited resources, and wanted to do my very best, would I be able to access the best knowledge to make the best possible decision under the circumstances?

Please give that information to decision-makers so that they can make a difference.

Patti on participatory research

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:21:00 +0000

On Wednesday Jeff Mariner talked about 'participatory epidemiology' and explained how villagers are central to disease detection and control efforts. Patti Kristjanson then referred to her earlier participatory work in Uganda and Kenya where community members provided current and historical information that enabled researchers to better understand how people got into and out of poverty.

'By probing for information, we gain knowledge, said Patti. We definitely need more participatory research. Yes, it is more ethical to involve the communities, but now researchers are also recognizing the major benefits that come from participatory approaches and tapping into indigenous knowledge. This includes faster and better results on the ground, for example when detecting disease outbreaks, better understanding of the local context and greater sensitivity to social and cultural issues, and more sustainable solutions for example in cases where community members decide to continue certain activities after researchers leave.'

And so we are reminded of an African saying "If you want to go fast - go alone. If you want to go far - go together" But what if you want to go fast AND far? Perhaps this is the role for the new generation of African scientists?

Hockey stick holds up!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:34:00 +0000

Nature research highlights (10 September 2008) confirm that the "Hockey stick holds up":

"A fresh analysis of climate indicators shows that the Northern Hemisphere is warmer now than it has been in at least 1,300 years. Previous analyses of climatic history by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues produced a distinctive 'hockey stick' shape; but some of this analysis, and the tree-ring data it used, came under attack.

"The latest work by Mann and his co-workers involves various climate proxies, including corals, ice cores, historical records and marine sediments. The authors show that current warming is anomalous even if all tree-ring data are eschewed."

Phil says 'it's one more piece in the puzzle concerning human impacts on the environment and makes it harder for us to deny climate change.'

Ref: The full article is available on the PNAS website: Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13252–13257 (2008)

John on digital villages

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:04:00 +0000

John Waibochi of Virtual City gave a stimulating talk on overcoming barriers to getting modern technologies and infrastructure into rural areas. Virtual City is a private indigenous Kenyan company specialising in the development of knowledge management solutions for local business and community groups using web-based technologies.

John described Digital Villages (a Government of Kenya and World Bank-funded initiative) established in July 2007. Each Digital Village offers a range of communication and business functions that are not generally available or accessible in poor rural communities. And each Digital Village is different based on the specific needs of the local community. This personalisation is what makes them self-sustaining because people know they are going to benefit and the initiative is already having positive economic and social impacts within participating communities.

Why the second stomach?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:02:00 +0000

At the end of John Waibochi's session he mentioned a tagging and tracking system for beef cattle that is now being implemented in Kenya to provide the assurances about health status that are required for export sales. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags hold digital information in a microchip and this communicates with a 'reader' to provide all sorts of information about the animal's origin, disease history and health status.

He told us the device is placed in the cow's second stomach. Ok! We try to visualise ..... then Onesmo bravely asked what the rest of the non-vets are wondering: why the second stomach? how on earth do you get it there? and how do you make sure it doesn't come back out? David admitted that he doesn't know why the second stomach but hoped there was a vet in the audience that could help! Brian Perry told us that the second stomach is used to ensure that it's not expelled! And Brian also told us you get it there by 'shooting' it in through the mouth with a special 'applicator'. A quick google search and hey presto - we think we have a pic of the device! Brian, is this it?

Jeff on bird flu

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:27:00 +0000

Jeff Mariner talked about lessons learned from responses to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and the different approaches that have been taken. Jeff says: Never has so much money been spent with so little strategic thought.

He talked about the shortcomings of conventional 'technically driven' interventions and the use of short term consultants. He contrasted this with community-centred 'people-driven' approaches like the one he and colleagues are using, called 'participatory epidemiology', to fight bird flu in Indonesia . This involves teams of veterinarians going into villages and tapping into local knowledge by talking to people to find out where and when bird flu outbreaks are occurring and then getting villagers to help with control efforts.

Rosemary Sang on lessons from RVF outbreak

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:04:00 +0000

Rosemary Sang led a session on Rift Valley Fever (RVF) and the lessons learned from the major RVF outbreak in Kenya in 2006-07 where 155 people died.

RVF is a vector=borne viral disease that comes after heavy persistent rains and flooding. People get RVF from handling livestock and their products or through infected mosquitos or secondary vectors.

Rosemary explained the sequence of events from October 2006 when the heavy rains first started (providing the breeding ground for the vectors that transmit RVF) through to the first veterinary cases (17 Nov) to the first human case (30 Nov) to the first medical response (11 Dec) to the peak of the outbreak (24 Dec) to the first veterinary intervention (14 Jan) (see figure below for dates).

How could we move the first response time back to October when all the signs were there?

The reality is that there are few health facilities in the area where people and animals were getting sick and dying. There is no mobile phone network either in the more remote regions. Rosemary explained that trying to get to the sick people was a major challenge. The heavy rains had cut off roads and when the medical response team got 5km out of Garissa town in northern Kenya, they found themselves out of mobile phone network range.

But it can be argued that more people were saved this time compared with the 1998 outbreak in the same area where 600 people died. What helped in this case was a ban slapped on slaughtering animals which prevented RVF being transmitted to more people. There's many lessons we can learn, said Rosemary, including the need for closer interaction between the veterinary and medical communities.

Patti Kristjanson explained that the workshop organizing committee had chosen RVF as a case study because it has all the complexities that we are dealing with in this challenge dialogue and how to have better response to disease.

Keith Jones summarised lessons learned:

accessing information from community important

prediction-related; how to improve; how to communicate better;

importance of working together; 'one health' concept
role of communications/ICTs and possibilities
economic-related: tourism, trade, livelihoods, etc are all impacted; not just people's and animal's health
evidence - need more basic science (eg still biological gaps including controversy over the vector!); priority research issues can be identified.

In the discussion that followed Chris Wood said that with the basic poverty and lack of health facilities in these remote area, it's hard to get people to spend time and energy thinking of how to prevent future problems when their current problem is how to survive their poverty.

Christian Borgemeister said you have 10-14 days after the start of the rains to kill mosquitos in their breeding sites.

News Report #1

noreply@blogger.com (mbraden) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:38:00 +0000

This morning the communications folks led a discussion on potential news stories. Jeff Haskins from Burness Communications is here to provide media expertise and organised for journalists from the Economist, Wall Street Journal, and the Daily Nation Kenya to attend the workshop yesterday.

While the discussions going on here are very important, we need to find a way to tell the story so the media will be interested, and as a result, we can bring about more public awareness and thus support and funding of this science, using predictive technologies to eradicate/manage infections diseases across the globe.

The communicators thought there might be potential for stories on malaria and mapping, but it's early days yet.....

Storms inside and outside

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:58:00 +0000

The day ended with two energizing "reflections of the day" statements from two participants, Caroline Kisia and David Rogers.

Caroline said: "As a big user of the kinds of information the scientists gathered here provide, for me to hear from you all directly was very, very interesting. There is so much know-how in this room! But we all speak very different languages. The question remains, how do we take such specialized knowledge to health care and community workers? That is, in spite of all the uncertainty of climate data and modeling, what are some of the practical, actionable things we can do?"

David offered a few "heresies":
"(1) Technology is part of the solution, not the whole solution---and we mustn't impose our solutions on other people's problems. Radio is a missed opportunity here.
(2) We don't all share data---and we're not all going to share it soon. Data is power and people don't give up power easily.
(3) The good news is that these diseases are connected, so that when you begin to get better control over one, that gives you leverage over some others.
(4) Silo busting is a state of mind.
(5) We need to look at problems as they are experienced on the ground.
(6) It's all about poverty, really; we should be looking at the environment-poverty-health nexus rather than the climate-human health-animal health nexus.
David ended with a story. A farmer he met in Ethiopia told him: "My child is dying of malaria. But it's tryps [animal trypanosomosis] that's killing her."

"We owe it to that farmer to integrate our knowledge more," said David.

And, in the midst of a storm of rain, the first day of this workshop ended.

Arguments continue.....The great data debate!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000

We notified you earlier about the 'Start of arguments' and as we expected, they continued! And guess what!? - they're still about data!

Steve Kemp had a lively session after lunch and provoked lots of questions, opinions and passion! At the start of his talk, he (bravely) said: "There's been a collosal failure of biologists to manage their own data. Biologists have no idea how bad they are at managing data."

After his talk, many hands were raised for both questions and opinions!

Onesmo ole-MoiYoi said he was aware there's ignorance amongst animal and human health people. The plant people are aware of this too. Ecologists and agronomists have been tackling this for years!

Phil Thornton said: I don't think it is right to tar all biologists with the same brush!

Saidi Apale, a young brilliant Kenyan bioinformatician, seemed intrigued by the following quote (in this workshop's workbook) from WIRED magazine:

Scientists have always relied on hypothesis and experimentation. Now, in the era of massive data, there's a better way." - Chris Anderson, WIRED, July 2008

Siadi then asked Steve three questions:
1. Do you agree with Chris Anderson that data is replacing hypothesis?
2. Is it already happening?
3. Should we be doing it?

Steve replied saying: Yes, yes and yes!
(We think a few eyebrows were raised at this point as this might mean that machines could replace scientists!)

Steve has offered to convene a session with participants interested in further exploring the Great Data Debates!

Interestingly last week a Nature Special Issue (4 Sep) examined what big data sets mean for science? The Nature editiorial says:

"Beyond a certain point, as an increasing number of research disciplines are discovering, the vast amounts of data are presenting fresh challenges that urgently need ot be addressed.

"Above all, data on today's scales require scientific and computational intelligence. Google may now have its critics, but no one can deny its impact, which ultimately stems from the cleverness of its informatics.
The future of science depends in part on such cleverness again being applied to data for their own sake, complementing scientific hypotheses as a basis for exploring today's information cornucopia."

As the debate continues, what do you all think?

P.S. This Nature article also reminds us that it's Google Search's 10th Birthday. So prior to that you wouldn't have been able to "Google" anyone or anything! Can anyone remember that!? Happy Birthday, Google Search!

Networking for Solutions: Taking the time for collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (mbraden) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Often the science of climate change and the environment is not enough to find solutions.

The collaboration of scientists, both disease and environment specialists is needed to bring about larger more sustainable solutions.

The importance of this dialogue cannot be stressed enough, bringing scientists and practitioners together, bridging the gaps from these very different perspectives from social and environment communities. We can learn so much more from this dual pronged approach.

This collaborative workshop brings together the science complexities and social complexities of climate change and infectious diseases and how experts in these areas can come together for practical actions to get to solutions.

The first step is taking the time to network with individuals in related fields in order to start bridging some of these information gaps. `