Food Safety and Zoonoses program
This paper outlines two studies on informed consent, for research identifying diseases of animal and human importance, within smallholder livestock value chains. Continue reading
The following excerpt is the beginning of a candid and thoughtful article by Ian Scoones, of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), at Sussex University, about an international symposium, One Health for the Real World: zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing, that took place at the Zoological Society of London last week (17–18 Mar 2016). Continue reading
One Health for the Real World: zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing
17–18 Mar 2016
This symposium will bring together leading experts from different fields to discuss the topic ‘Healthy ecosystems, healthy people’. Continue reading
African camels could hold important clues to controlling the potential spread of a respiratory disease transmitted by the animals. For many years African camels have lived with the disease and the risk of it spreading to humans is still low. But more research is necessary to understand the disease better. This is even more important given the confirmation that the chains of transmission of the human Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection originated from contact with camels. Continue reading
‘Members of communities that live in forests and depend on hunting for survival have been reported to be at risk because bush meat, widely used as their source of food, can be a source of deadly pathogens from wild animals to humans. The Arusha-based, Nelson Mandela University and the US Centre[s] for Disease Control have now entered into a project aimed at curbing the transmission of diseases from wild animals to human beings.’ Continue reading
The Urban Zoo project is visiting 99 households across Nairobi, rich and poor, with livestock and without. They’re taking samples from people, their animals, and whatever wildlife they can find nearby (and catch): storks, mice, bats, et cetera. They’re sampling the ground around homes, yards and livestock pens with white paper booties. ‘The aim, says University of Liverpool veterinarian Judy Bettridge, is “to try and understand on a small scale how those bacteria are shared” among each household’s people, livestock and environment. “And then when we scale it up, are the bacteria here being shared with the household that’s 50 meters over there? Or 100 meters over there? So, how far can they actually spread?” . . . Continue reading
After nine years, the Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has produced the first global assessment of food-borne disease. Continue reading
Pork joints in Uganda (photo credit: ILRI/Martin Heilmann, Freie Universitaet Berlin). The following excerpts are taken from a guest commentary, Healthy foods must be nutritious, safe and fair, published on the Global Food for Thought blog of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on 10 Apr 2015. The authors are John McDermott, of the International Food Policy … Continue reading
An Urban Zoo research project in Kenya (more formally called ‘Epidemiology, Ecology and Socio‐Economics of Disease Emergence in Nairobi’) is tracking pathogen flows in and around Kenya’s capital city. Continue reading
Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist colleague of Robinson’s at ILRI, was recently asked by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to write a paper, now under external review, on antimicrobial resistance linked to agriculture. Continue reading
