One Health is a worldwide movement that promotes collaborative efforts between different health-related professionals and paraprofessionals. It expands interdisciplinary collaborations and communications among physicians, osteopaths, veterinarians, dentists, nurses, biomedical researchers, public health practitioners and other scientific health and environmentally related disciplines.
The One Health movement has been defined as “the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines — working locally, nationally and globally — to attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment.” During the last century, human and animal diseases have been largely treated as separate entities; however, the One Health concept provides a pathway to showcase how human, environmental and animal health are interrelated.
The African Institute of One Health Research and Diagnostics (AIOHRD) was established as an institute of excellence one health research and diagnostics, to be recognised internationally and to be considered as a reference centre for the entire African continent. The research programmes of the Institute are aligned with the health research priority areas and health needs of the African countries.
The AIOHRD will carry out research to advance scientific knowledge and understanding as well as to provide evidence for informed decision making and formulation of effective, preventive and control programmes and activities. The research will also be carried out with the purpose of developing capacity building, innovative technologies or products and identifying new biomarkers for use in the early detection and diagnosis of disease, monitoring of diseases progression and outcome targeted therapy.
The AIOHRD will support the laboratory services through continuous improvement of test methods or development of new approaches through research & development. The diagnostic unit of the institute will also serve as a reference centre for molecular diagnostics of both infectious and non-infectious diseases. The AIOHRD will offer several regular scientific and technical training programmes as well as ad hoc training programmes and attachments for a wide variety of disciplines in medical and veterinary research to local and foreign participants.
