the Portico
“Our mission is to enhance the relationship between the University and its alumni and friends and promoted pride and commitment within the University Community.”AFRICAN FAMINE SHOWS NEED FOR 'ONE HEALTH'
Alastair Summerlee
Photo by Grant Martin
I travelled to the Horn of Africa this summer to help increase access to education for girls and women in eastern Kenya. As fate would have it, I was there when the United Nation issued a declaration of famine in neighbouring Somalia. Already considered the largest refugee camp in the world, the camp outside Dabaab, Kenya, was trying to care for 1,300 new arrivals a day from Somalia seeking food, water and hope.
I was overcome by the tragedy and found it difficult to make sense of something so senseless. Only the aid workers prevented me from being completely heartbroken, as they demonstrated how individuals can make an enormous difference in such a crisis.
I also have hope for the education project being considered and the students it will help. Education offers hope for a better life and perhaps a way for people to prevent future episodes like this one ─ mass starvation brought on by prolonged drought, allowed to happen because of political chaos that seems to foster poverty and preventable diseases while encouraging desertification and deforestation practices that destroy the resources needed by the area’s 20 million nomadic livestock farmers ─ all compounded by a lack of foresight that could have encouraged agriculture and allowed people to stockpile food to see them through the inevitable next cycle of drought.
On my flight home, I reflected on my personal witness of the situation – what seems like the perfect example of why we need the “one health” approach. One health is a concept that is shaping the future of the veterinary profession and particularly teaching and research at the Ontario Veterinary College. As it prepares to celebrate its 150th anniversary, OVC is addressing the urgent need for an integrated approach to animal, human and environmental health.
How can we veterinarians improve livestock and wildlife health in Somalia without also considering the welfare of the farmers who share the same water and food sources? How can we reach the goal of ensuring a safe and secure food supply, in Somalia or in Canada, without addressing environmental health? Or health infrastructure? Or public policy?
At Guelph, we have fine-tuned our veterinary program to help OVC graduates develop a broad understanding of these areas and work closely with physicians and environmental scientists. Our graduates also need to be prepared to contribute to planning for national and global responses to specific challenges, outbreaks and catastrophes like the one I witnessed in Africa.
In this issue of The Portico, you will read more about OVC’s pioneering role in the growth and acceptance of ecohealth as a legitimate and important area of study. We still need to work on implementing this “one health ─ one world” approach here in Canada and beyond. The role of the veterinary profession and environmental scientists is not clearly understood nor widely accepted by the medical profession. We must be prepared, and prepare all U of G graduates, to advocate for better co-ordination of the activities of human, animal and environmental health experts.
There are many challenges to this effort, not least the financial issues involved in curriculum development and providing appropriate teaching facilities and international experiences for students. These are necessarily among the priorities of the University’s BetterPlanet Project.
Since OVC’s founding in 1862, veterinary medicine in Canada has come a long way. Today we are teaching students not just to think about individual animal health but to take a more holistic approach. If we can connect human, animal and environmental health more effectively ─ and the Horn of Africa demonstrates that we must – we will have the capacity to bring about positive change.
