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Dr. Samuel Akpan, a Research Fellow at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Disease (ACEGID), has emerged as the winner of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) World Food Forum (WFF) Global One Health Prize 2024. Dr. Akpan’s team won the WFF Transformative Research Challenge grant of €10,000 for their project titled: “Applying Community and Gender-inclusive One Health Approaches for Safer and More Sustainable Wild Meat Use in Lagos, Nigeria.”
The project will engage concerned stakeholders to jointly identify risks involved with wild meat (commonly called “bush meat” in Nigeria) value chain and co-create strategies to sustain human livelihood, protect human health and preserve the environment. Achieving this requires compromises from actors involved in capturing, sale, processing, marketing, and consumption in Lagos.
Lagos is a densely populated cosmopolitan city accessed via land, water, and air from other parts of Nigeria, Africa, and the world. “If pathogens (diseases-causing microorganisms) cross from bushmeat to humans in Lagos, they can cause disease outbreaks and affect public health severely,” said Dr. Akpan.
“Also, as an important international trade hub for Nigeria and Africa, it is accessible by sea, air and land. Hence, emerging bacteria and viruses from bush meat can be exported to other parts of Africa and the world, leading to potential disease outbreaks,” he added.
The project proffers solutions to challenges Dr. Akpan identified earlier in the Lagos during a wild meat value chain mapping.
A vital component of the project is the involvement of community and gender-inclusive approaches. While men hunt for the animals, women handle most of the post-hunting processes, and several people are involved in the different stages. All are at risk of varying infection levels from wild animals and their meat. Hence, the project will consciously engage community stakeholders (market authorities, hunters’ associations, and environmental and wildlife conservation agencies) and women. They will jointly identify risks and define ways to minimize health risks while sustaining their livelihoods and conserving the environment.
Dr. Akpan’s team includes Dr. Sherril Phyllis Masudi and Dr. Nicholas Ngwili, Graduate Fellow and Post-Doctoral Scientist, respectively at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya. The trio competed with thousands of entries worldwide to become the category winner, grateful for the support of their mentors, Dr. Katinka de Balogh, Dr. Jesse Bonwitt of the World Health Organization (WHO), and Dr. Ekta Patel of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
