Weak coordination efforts affecting control of diseases transmittable from animals to humans — NCDC

DIRECTOR-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, says weak coordination efforts among stakeholders, especially at the subnational level, were a challenge to operationalising the ‘one health approach’ to ensure the prioritisation of zoonotic disease prevention in public health significance in Nigeria.

Dr Adetifa, in a keynote address at the second Ibadan Public health Conference by the Faculty of Public Health, University of Ibadan, with the theme “Public Health in a Changing World”, said health interventions, including one health approach, require collaborative efforts from healthcare providers, governments, academics and research institutions at every level to ensure they are effective.

Adetifa, represented by NCDC’s Director of Health Emergency Preparedness and Response, Dr John Oladejo, said inadequate funding for one health activities, differences in organisational cultures, poor buy-in from medical, veterinary and environmental partners, poor awareness of zoonosis among health workers, and difficulty getting busy practitioners on board, were key challenges of one health activities in the country.

He said a holistic approach is required to prevent zoonotic diseases of public health significance in Nigeria, including yellow fever, rabies, Ebola, Lassa fever, tuberculosis and monkeypox as well as in curtailing the spread of these diseases in the community.

Professor Willaim Brieger, a public health expert at the John Hopkins University, also a keynote speaker, said the biggest challenge to global public health in the most recent years is the COVID-19 pandemic in which countries were affected in different ways.

He said it is difficult to plan when the nature and extent of any pandemic at the country level are not known, given also the persistence and concurrence of other endemics, including seasonal malaria, measles, and meningitis whose outbreaks are exacerbated by poverty.

The don said the effect of unpreparedness for pandemics was evident in the COVID-19-related disruption to malaria control in Africa.

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According to Professor Brieger, the changing world due to climate and urbanisation is also creating a new normal that requires that public health professionals must be ready to function amid epidemics and new and increasing disease burdens.

Dean, Faculty of Public Health, University of Ibadan, Professor Godson Ana, said the world is faced with a myriad of public health-related issues and solving these require a critical public health team.

He said the conference, which the Ibadan Public Health Alumni Network and the faculty’s journal, Discoveries in Public Health, were launched was expected to provide opportunities for mentoring upcoming scholars as well as provide a veritable platform for networking and fostering new collaborations.