A recent study conducted in 10 districts has established that the training in ‘One Health’ concepts and disease outbreak coordination conducted among political and technical heads of districts in Uganda increased their knowledge in this field.
The One Health approach was adopted by the Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Health to address three priority public health threats such as zoonotic diseases, anti microbial resistance (AMR) and bio-security.
As portrayed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, One Health recognizes that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and the shared environment.
Titled ‘Building Capacity for One Health at Sub-National level: Experiences and Lessons from a District Training Program in Uganda, the study was conducted by Makerere University School of Public Health in partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Bio-security (COVAB) in Kisoro, Kanungu, Bundibugyo, Ntoroko, Kikuube, Buliisa, Arua, Zombo, Isingiro and Kagadi with 115 participants.
During the virtual dissemination of the findings on Thursday, Dr. Aloysius Ssennyonjo, a co-investigator of the study, noted that many concerns that affect people’s health and wellbeing as well as animals have an interception with human, animal health and environment.
“Recent examples we are facing like covid-19, zoonotic diseases like Marburg, Ebola as well as some other broad concerns like anti microbial resistance have been shown to interact within these 3 sectors. At the center of these 3 different domains, an effort to bring actors together in order to have a concerted and a holistic approach is important,” he said.
Adding: “These districts were purposely selected because we were focusing on Ebola disease but they also have border crossing points. Our training focused on having a participatory approach using adult learning and building on the experiences of the actors.”
Some of the topics covered were concepts on one health and multi-sectoral coordination, risk communication and collaborative leadership skills, preparedness and response plans among others.
In the findings, it was noted that correct understanding of the multi-sectoral approach improved from 84.1% at baseline to 97.7% after training (+ 13.6%). Understanding of one health improved from 54.2% before training to 89.2% after the training (percentage change +35.0%).
“Overall, the level of knowledge on district-level coordination significantly increased from 52.9% to 69.2% (Net increase of 16.3%). Only 32.3% (30/93) reported ever attending a similar training before. All participants admitted that the training was relevant and improved their knowledge of working together and coordinating as a team during outbreaks,” the researchers noted.
Dr. Willy Nguma, Veterinary Officer Arua, commended the trainers for their work.
“As a district, we thank the National One Health (NOH) because their capacity building moves helped us a lot as far as disease response was concerned,” he said.
He noted that at district level, they have a comprehensive team that is headed by the RDC, comprising of various sectors and they have had capacity building from the national one health platform and many other organizations
The chairperson of Makerere Research and Innovation Fund (Mak-RIF), Prof William Bazeyo, commended the research team and said that researchers should be able to do studies that can be replicated, “such that findings in one area can be transferred to another.”
The study was funded by the Ugandan government through Makerere University Research and Innovations Fund.
