December 04, 2013
Dr. Doug Call, of the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health at Washington State University, met with members of the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) team at CDDEP on November 13th to discuss antibiotic resistance in Tanzania, one of the GARP partner countries. “Antibiotic resistance is One Health in scope and global in scale,” said Dr. Call, referring to the One Health Initiative, which aims to foster collaboration between physicians, veterinarians, and leaders in environmental and health research to improve the lives of all species.
Dr. Call and his colleagues at Washington State University and the University of Glasgow received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in 2012 to further explore the links between human, animal, and environmental health through a research project entitled, Ecological and Socioeconomic Factors Impacting the Maintenance and Dissemination of Antibiotic Resistance in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem, which held its first workshop in Arusha in October of this year. The first year of research is being carried out in a predominantly Maasai population in four communities in Arusha and Manyara, Tanzania, where electricity and formal schooling are uncommon. People in the region live in close proximity to livestock and the livestock herds in the area frequently come in contact with one another. In the communities being studied, livestock antibiotics are largely administered by animal owners rather than veterinarians.
The ongoing research aims to paint a portrait of antibiotic resistance in these communities by combining information from household socioeconomic surveys, ethnographic interviews, interviews on antibiotic supply chains, a livestock network analysis, and results of antibiotic resistance phenotyping, genotyping, and fingerprinting in humans and animals. Enrollment for the study is underway and forthcoming results will shed light on factors contributing to antibiotic resistance in the region.
Image via 5imon/Flickr
