By Kimuri Mwangi
Kajiado County will soon roll out the One Health Care Approach Strategic Plan 2025-2030. This approach addresses the interrelation of human, animal, and environmental health, focusing on zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and other public health threats.
The Kajiado county programme supported by AMREF Health Africa will be able to streamline Service delivery across three departments, namely medical services, Environment and Agriculture. The one health programme will also benefit the community through a one health digital hub developed by the Cooperative University of Kenya (CUK).
Speaking during a three-day sensitization meeting for Kajiado Members of the County Assembly, Associate Prof. Wycliffe Oboka from CUK said they have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the county on how they can leverage agricultural cooperatives and use gender responsive health care financing. Through the MOU, he said they have been supporting each other in various areas of development, looking at how they can leverage agricultural cooperatives specifically for implementing the ‘One Health approach.
Many pandemics and diseases, Prof. Oboka said, have an interaction between man and animals. Therefore as a way of facilitating that process, they have developed a one health digital platform Agricultural cooperatives, Prof. Oboka added have become very important vehicle through which the messages including registration can be of benefit to community and farmers in the villages and therefore the digital platform they are developing and piloting connects farmers in the village with experts. They can report incidents through the platform and get feedback immediately. He stressed that there is a huge opportunity in enhancing healthcare financing using agricultural cooperatives that can reach a huge number of Kenyans, saying the world is moving towards One Health.
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“We are currently piloting the digital project in Loitokitok, and it has shown a lot of interest. With Kajiado county now coming up with a one health strategic plan, it is timely considering again it will be among maybe five counties that have embraced the one health approach,” Prof. Oboka said.
Speaker of the County Assembly, Kajiado Hon. Justus Ng’ossor said the three-day training on issues of the one health unit and their strategic plan will help coordinate three different departments that are dealing with matters of health and also be able to come out with resolutions on how to deliver services in a better way.
Kajiado Health CEC, Alex Kilouwa said having a One Health Care Approach strategic plan is very significant to Kajiado County as it is a county that has a lot of livestock that interact with humans and thus is prone to zoonotic disease.
“The three committees of the assembly, namely health, water and environment, as well as agriculture and fisheries, have for the last three days gone through training on the One Health Care Approach that will have sustainable financing through incorporating the three into one”, he said.
Kilouwa added that they had validated the One Health strategic plan and also came up with a road map of the document, which will now move to the County Cabinet through the Governor, presented by the three committees before officially launching the “One Health Strategic plan 2025/2030”. He thanked the presentation done by the cooperative university of Kenya on the one health digital hub, saying it will be able to assist the community and also fill in the knowledge gap, especially in the rural areas. “The hub will allow the people in the rural areas to, for example, make a photo of or even report a sick animal, and they leverage on veterinary officers or even doctors on the platform by getting a response quickly,” the CEC said.
Joram Onditi from AMREF Health Africa in Kenya said they have been training members of the county assembly and other stakeholders on the importance of embracing the One Health approach, which is key in addressing diseases that affect human beings from animals and the environment.
“In the recent past, we realized that over 70 percent of diseases that affect humans get transmitted from animals. Some of them include the recent pandemic, COVID-19, and so through this approach, we will be able to combat and prevent most of those zoonotic diseases such as brucellosis, anthrax and even COVID. He noted that not many Counties have embraced the One Health approach, saying more sensitization is needed for them to understand the benefits of using it to combat and promote health among their populations.
Kenya has had a One Health Strategic Plan for the prevention and control of zoonotic diseases (2021-2025) that was developed with subject matter experts from human, environmental and animal health sectors, researchers and policy formulators at the national and county levels. For Kajiado County, the “One Health Approach” strategic plan provides a comprehensive framework for strengthening effective implementation of one health approach in the county, enhancing public health surveillance, preparedness, response and control of public health events and promotion of applied research using the one health approach while strengthening intersectoral collaboration by fostering partnerships with various stakeholders including; government agencies, non-state actors and the private sector.
