“We should define our own ambitions”: Professor Sahar Traoré pleads for national funding for One Health in Guinea

Placed under the aegis of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Pasteur Institute of Guinea, this scientific conference was marked by scientific communications, discussions and a round table. This meeting took place in the wake of the inauguration of the Pasteur Institute of Guinea.

During this scientific meeting, a round table bringing together representatives of research, public health, environment and development attracted the attention of the scientific community. Everyone agrees on one observation: “Guinea has the assets to make One Health a reality, but the road to full integration remains strewn with pitfalls.”

One Health, an operational mechanism above all

It was Professor Cissé, Dean of the UGANC Faculty of Medicine, who opened the debates. From the outset, he set the framework. For him, a country which was the epicenter of Ebola and which regularly faces diseases such as Lassa fever, the One Health approach cannot remain a simple theoretical concept but it must function as an operational mechanism linking human, animal and environmental health.

Professor Mohamed Sahar Traoré, Director of the Applied Biology Research Institute of Guinea (IRBAG), welcomed the existence of a national platform involving the ministries of Higher Education, Health, Livestock and the Environment, while warning of its limits.  For him, in our context, certain determinants of One Health tend to be forgotten: mycotoxins, plant contaminations, or even the impact of agricultural pesticides on health remain insufficiently documented

“When the funding flow comes from outside, the framework is often already fully defined. At the national level, we need to be able to define our own ambitions in terms of One Health research and put money into funding research into our particularities,” pleads Professor Traoré.

He also highlighted Guinea's mineral wealth as an untapped financing lever, citing the example of bauxite mining in Gaoual, which has caused an increase in snake bites by disrupting the local ecology.

“Why not make mining companies contribute to financing the imbalances they cause? ", he suggested.

Break down barriers to finance differently

Dr. Solène Grayo, Director of the One Health group at the Pasteur Institute of Guinea, pointed out what remains perhaps the crux of the problem, such as the artificial compartmentalizations that persist between institutions, including during strategic meetings supposed to bring them together.

She questioned the very logic of current funding: each project leader highlights the One Health aspect of their file in the hope of obtaining funds, without this leading to real collaborative projects.

“To really encourage this collaboration, it would be relevant that at the national level, we try to finance collaborative projects,” she said.

Guinea, a global example in the fight against zoonoses

Dr Mohamed Idriss Doumbouya, representative of the SNV Netherlands Development Organization and President of the multi-sectoral One Health platform at the technical level, took stock of the progress made in animal health. According to him, ten years ago, veterinary surveillance was in great difficulty, but today, the National Directorate of Veterinary Services relies on electronic tools and is working on interoperability between the DHIS2 platform (District Health Information Software version 2) of the Ministry of Health and the electronic rabies surveillance tool of the Ministry of Livestock.

“When there is a health problem linked to zoonotic diseases in a prefecture, all One Health teams mobilize to carry out an investigation together. Guinea is cited as an example in the world,” he said, recalling his recent return from the One Health summit in Lyon where Guinea was invited to present its experience.

Among the concrete achievements, he cited the integrated rabies elimination plan by 2030, signed by the three ministers of Health, Environment and Livestock, as well as the deployment of the electronic tool for real-time rabies surveillance. He also announced that the One Health platform now extends to the sub-prefectural level.

He made an urgent appeal to researchers: “Share your research information with us, because it allows us to put monitoring plans in place. The results presented today on Crimea-Congo now make it a priority for veterinary services. »

Rethinking training for an interdisciplinary field

One Health must above all be a tool for connecting institutions and experts, according to Professor ElHadj Saidou Baldé, Director of the Institute for Research and Development of Medicinal and Food Plants of Guinea (IRDPMAG).

“We have well-trained doctors, well-trained pharmacists, well-trained environmentalists, but who have difficulty working together,” he observed.

He illustrated his point with a childhood memory, where his grandparents were able, from the observation of an insect, to anticipate the developments of the coming season, a form of territorial and interdisciplinary knowledge that formal science still struggles to reproduce.

He called for multidisciplinary team training in the field, where a veterinarian would have knowledge of the environment and human medicine, and where his observations could serve as an alert for other specialists. On the question of financing, his position is clear: “Money should not be an obstacle to the operationalization of One Health in the field of training. We have enough scientific basis. Just compile them and work together around a table. »

A Guinea on the move, but which must go further

At the end of this round table rich in discussions, a consensus emerged. Guinea has taken important steps, but the consolidation of One Health still requires structural efforts, more coherent national funding including mining resources, systematic sharing of scientific data, renovated interdisciplinary training and open-sided institutional collaboration.

So many projects that the actors present seem determined to open, convinced that the One Health approach represents, for Guinea, much more than a concept, because it is a real tool of health sovereignty.

Mamadou Kindy BAH