The Ohio State / Ethiopia One Health Partnership developed in response to consultations among The Ohio State University, Ethiopian universities, regional institutes and U.S. federal partners. (The partnership section of this website includes the full list of collaborators.)
This partnership integrates academicians and practitioners from Ohio State and select East African countries to leverage their knowledge, skills and resources to directly and indirectly contribute to improving biologic and economic health in developed and underdeveloped countries.
Our vision is that our work will:
- Build the capacity and quality of educators, researchers and practitioners
- Identify and manage issues of infectious and chronic diseases affecting both humans and animals, especially in relation to air, water and food quality.
This partnership is built upon addressing the three discovery themes of The Ohio State University:
- Health and Wellness
- Energy and Environment
- Food Production and Security
Major priority areas identified for the One Health project:
Education
- Short-term engagement supplemented with long-term PhD training to strengthen capacity and lay the groundwork for future collaborations.
- One Health Summer Institute that includes one to two week modular courses in various health science disciplines.
- One sandwich PhD candidate admitted in each of the health science disciplines from the two partner institutes with a completion time line of four years.
Research
- Rabies elimination: conduct feasibility and KAP assessment, and a portion of the intervention using vaccine delivery and population control.
- Environmental health: map sources and types of environmental contaminants, immobilize movement of contaminants, identify pathways of human and animal exposures to toxic chemicals and microbial pathogens, and document the real and potential adverse toxicological and pathogenic effects.
Outreach:
- Develop an electronic platform: use a custom tablet-based application to capture One Health research and training activities.
- Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment: strengthen capacity in prenatal and maternal health; feasibility and pilot projects will be conducted in the short term.
Resources Stewardship
- Build capacity in business and marketing communications.
- Enhance access to electronic and traditional library texts.
Parallel projects
Existing and future exploratory projects:
- Medicinal plants initiative
- Food security and environment project
- Molecular epidemiology of foodborne pathogens (NIH FIC funded)
- Rotaviruses project (Sandwich PhD from AAU trained)
- Multi-drug resistant Salmonella project (WHO funded; sandwich PhD from AAU trained
- Nutrition, HIV, and Enterics (NIH—submitted)
- TB biorepository (NIH – submitted)
- Leishmaniasis (NIH Funded; sandwich PhD from AAU trained)
- ICT Capacity (NIH – submitted)
Clinical capacity strengthening engagements:
A College of Medicine ophthalmology team conducted teaching and exploratory activity in February 2013.
Additionally, a neurosurgeon and three optometrists joined the health sciences team for the Summer Institute.