One health project carries out community entry in Nigeria

Project members distribute flyers with study information to community members. Photo: NCDC

In early December 2023, the interdisciplinary consortium of the project “Community-based One Health Participatory and Empowerment Strategy” (COPE) met for the implementation of the first project milestone: the entry into a local community in Nigeria. The One Health project is testing a community-based, participatory strategy to reduce the burden of disease resulting from human-animal-environmental interfaces in rural communities with limited resources. It is a 3-year project led by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention under the German Federal Ministry of Health’s Global Health Protection Programme (GHPP).

Arrival of project staff in the research region. Photo: NCDC

The meetings were preceded by a preparatory phase during which various training sessions, stakeholder visits and the official community entry including community sensitisation had been planned. Team members from all project partners were involved in the planning and implementation: the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI), the National Veterinary Research Institute of Nigeria (NVRI), the University of Ibadan (UI) in Nigeria, and RKI’s Centre for International Health Protection (ZIG). During an intensive week of work, representatives of the interdisciplinary sub-teams representing epidemiology, veterinary medicine, anthropology and environmental sciences provided insights into their respective areas of work. The aim was to provide mutual training for the team members and to train local research assistants for the subsequent field phase. The latter were familiarised with the handling of epidemiological questionnaires and laboratory samples. Parallel to the training sessions, advocacy visits were paid to important regional stakeholders in whose political and health-related spheres of influence activities of the project are carried out.

Concentrated group work with representatives from different teams. Photo: NCDC

For the community entry in a rural area in South East Nigeria, the project team met with the head of the community and his committee to present the project and to give an outlook on the next project activities. Finally, the community was introduced to the project through printed fliers accompanied by verbal explanations by team members at the local markets as key locations of the community. The Nigerian anthropology team remained in the field after this week in order to create a trusting basis for further project work over the next two years and to carry out the anthropological study. All sub-teams will return to the community in March 2024 for the next milestone, namely the first risk assessment of One Health challenges in everyday community life.

The whole anthropology team shortly before the three-month research stay of the Nigerian anthropology team in the community. Photo: NCDC

to the top