Category Archives: Opinion piece

Wildlife markets in the pandemic: Prohibit or preserve them? Ban or promote them?
Advocacy / Agri-Health / AHH / AMR / Animal Products / Consumption / COVID19 / Directorate / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Food Safety / Food Security / Human Health / ILRI / Markets / Nutrition / OneHealth / Opinion piece / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Wildlife / Zoonotic Diseases

Wildlife markets in the pandemic: Prohibit or preserve them? Ban or promote them?

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ILRI and UN experts say preserve and protect the world’s ‘informal markets’ AND invest and enhance these markets, which provide billions of people
with food and incomes. Continue reading →

Getting beyond ’empty signifiers’—Food policy expert Corinna Hawkes asks: What are food systems for?
Advocacy / Agri-Health / Agriculture / Article / Diet / Opinion piece / Policy

Getting beyond ’empty signifiers’—Food policy expert Corinna Hawkes asks: What are food systems for?

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Corinna Hawkes, director of the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London, UK, asks all of us concerned with ‘food systems’ of one kind or another to think beyond ’empty signifiers’, even beyond visions for better food systems, and to get back to a fundamental question—what should be the purpose of food systems? If we can reach agreement on that, she argues, we can then set about creating diverse visions and actions, suiting diverse circumstances, for fulfilling that agreed-upon purpose. Continue reading →

Scientists stress need, amid COVID-19, to maintain focus on everyday zoonotic diseases of the world’s poor
Africa / Agri-Health / AHH / Brucellosis / COVID19 / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Human Health / ILRI / News clipping / OneHealth / Opinion piece / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Trypanosomiasis / Zoonotic Diseases

Scientists stress need, amid COVID-19, to maintain focus on everyday zoonotic diseases of the world’s poor

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Most diseases that transmit from animals to humans (zoonoses) are not of the headline-grabbing, world-stopping variety write Eric Fèvre and Naomi Marks. They are an everyday reality for millions of people whose lives are quietly blighted or prematurely ended by diseases transmitted through farming and food systems. Continue reading →

COVID-19 gives the ‘One Health’ approach to tackling epidemics ‘global celebrity status’. Again.
Advocacy / Agri-Health / COVID19 / Directorate / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Human Health / OneHealth / Opinion piece / Zoonotic Diseases

COVID-19 gives the ‘One Health’ approach to tackling epidemics ‘global celebrity status’. Again.

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Recent past pandemics, such as bird flu, swine flu and MERS likewise led to the potential of One Health being acclaimed. But the present COVID-19 pandemic reveals that the implementation of One Health has not matched its periodic celebrity status. So what is the problem? Continue reading →

Vaccines against this year’s novel (and world-changing) coronavirus are already in development and being tested—Good news from Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty
Advocacy / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Australia / COVID19 / Directorate / Emerging Diseases / Film and video / Human Health / ILRI / ILRIComms / News clipping / Opinion piece / Zoonotic Diseases

Vaccines against this year’s novel (and world-changing) coronavirus are already in development and being tested—Good news from Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty

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While some COVID-19 surges are now ‘baked-in’, the viral curves should flatten with appropriate measures now being introduced in many countries, and several different vaccines are being developed and already being tested, says Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty. Australian veterinary and medical immunology researcher Peter Doherty won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Now based in Melbourne, Doherty is patron of the the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Doherty is also a former board member and current patron of ILRI. Continue reading →

What keeps Bill Gates up at night? A (highly prescient) 2015 article spells out our COVID-19 challenges today
Agri-Health / COVID19 / Directorate / Epidemiology / Human Health / ILRIComms / News clipping / Opinion piece / Zoonotic Diseases

What keeps Bill Gates up at night? A (highly prescient) 2015 article spells out our COVID-19 challenges today

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Gates’s model showed that a Spanish flu–like disease unleashed on the modern world would kill more than 33 million people in 250 days. “We’ve created, in terms of spread, the most dangerous environment that we’ve ever had in the history of mankind,” Gates says. Continue reading →

Donors commit USD790m to help smallholder farmers cope with climate change; Global Commission on Adaptation calls for doubling of investments in CGIAR
Advocacy / Africa / Agriculture / CGIAR / Climate Change / Food Security / Opinion piece / Policy / South Asia

Donors commit USD790m to help smallholder farmers cope with climate change; Global Commission on Adaptation calls for doubling of investments in CGIAR

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On September 23, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the European Commission, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany announced commitments of more than US $790 million to address the impact of climate change on food and agriculture. These commitments followed a recent call by the Global Commission on Adaptation, led by Ban Ki Moon, Bill Gates, and Kristalina Georgieva, for increased resource allocations to international agricultural research. Continue reading →

Don’t believe the scare stories, Kenyan milk is a big success
Advocacy / Aflatoxins / Africa / Cattle / Communications / Consumption / Dairying / East Africa / Food Safety / Kenya / News clipping / Opinion piece / Research

Don’t believe the scare stories, Kenyan milk is a big success

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We sent the following note to Parents Africa magazine, which published an unfortunately alarmist article recently based on research conducted by ILRI scientists. A recent article in Parents Africa magazine reaches some unduly alarming conclusions about the milk sold in Nairobi—and attributes them to research published by scientists here at the International Livestock Research Institute … Continue reading →