Taking stock of a decade of teaching the One Health approach in Africa

Created at the end of 2023, the One Health Institute for Africa (Inoha) is a joint research and training structure of the University of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It devotes its resources to finding innovative solutions to public health challenges in countries such as the DRC.

This vast country of over two million km² and 100 million inhabitants shares land borders with nine neighbors. Crossed by the Congo River and more than half covered by equatorial forest, its geography is also marked by large lakes on its eastern flank. The Congo Basin is home to the world's most important tropical peat bogs.

It is around these aquatic and forest ecosystems that we see the emergence or re-emergence of pathogens with high epidemic potential: Mpox, Ebola, HIV AIDS and cholera as far back as the 1970s, and Mpox and poliomyelitis more recently. Faced with the exacerbation of recurrent economic and socio-political crises, the DRC is struggling to adapt a national response capacity to contain these epidemics.

Inhao believes that updating knowledge on these public health issues is the key to strengthening response strategies. The Institute emphasizes the need to produce methods and promotes, in particular, the One Health / “Sustainable health for all” approach. What does this mean? It's a multi-disciplinary approach to analyzing the factors behind the recurrence or emergence of disease, and proposing innovative solutions. It is taught at the University of Kinshasa's Master's program in Ecology of Infectious Diseases.

With the support of the Veolia Foundation, Inaho is organizing an international symposium in spring 2024 to bring together international experts on the subject, researchers and government players. Objectives: to share knowledge, discuss best practices and shape the future of global health research and training in Africa.