OUR ACTIVITIES- EMBRACING THE ONE HEALTH APPROACH IN THE FIGHT AGAINST RABIES

The “One Health” approach summarizes a concept that has been known for more than a century: that human, animal, and plant health are interdependent and bound to the health of the ecosystems in which they exist. Therefore, the project for strengthening Laboratory-based surveillance for infectious diseases in collaboration with the Zambia National Public Health Institute (ZNPHI) has since joined the rest of the stakeholders involved in the fight of dog-mediated rabies.

Zambia's fight against rabies aims to eliminate rabies in the country and contribute to the global goal of eliminating human deaths from rabies by 2030.

ZNPHI, Zambia National Public Health Reference Laboratory (ZNPHRL) and the project decided to address this problem from the human side and to support the networking of public health authorities, research institutes, and medical facilities to enable the case investigations and laboratory testing of suspected human cases of rabies.

In line with this, the Project has managed to achieve formulation of a functional technical working group in One Health Approach, by “Breaking Boundaries” between human and animal health toward establishment of the laboratory diagnostic capacity for rabies, consisted of the rabies experts from health care facilities, Central Veterinary Research Institute (CVRI), University of Zambia School of Veterinary Medicine (UNZA-SVM), relevant ministries, and ZNPHI/ZNPHRL. This working group has managed to establish a testing strategy for human rabies samples, and other necessary public health tools such as case investigation forms. In parallel with this effort, the Project successfully acquired laboratory equipment and reagents essential for rabies laboratory testing in the ZNPHRL. The team is further proceeding with the validation and training of the rabies testing methods in the ZNPHRL.