COPE

Duration: 2023 - 2025

Partner country: Nigeria

Partner institutions:

• Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI), Germany
• Nigeria Centre of Disease Control (NCDC), Nigeria
• Nigeria Veterinary Institute (NVRI), Nigeria

Involved RKI unit: ZIG Office

Latest updates:

• One health project carries out community entry in Nigeria
• Kick-off for a new one health community empowerment project in Nigeria

The Community-based One Health Participatory and Empowerment Strategy for One Health Interventions (COPE). Source: NCDC

Challenges addressed by the project

Lassa fever (LF), Ebola virus disease and other dangerous endemic diseases in West Africa have highlighted how important a public health approach focused on the needs of local populations in combination with a One Health understanding is for the management of zoonotic health threats. Bottom-up approaches strengthen the One Health relevant structures, which in addition to epidemiologically oriented agendas and models, also consider other public health aspects, anthropology, veterinary medicine and ecology.

Objectives

This project will strengthen key capacities of the human, animal and environmental health sectors in Nigeria, contributing to ongoing efforts of prevention and control of zoonotic infectious diseases under the One Health agenda. As one of the global hotspots of zoonotic diseases, Nigeria is strengthening preparedness for emerging and re-emerging pathogens with pandemic potential. Such efforts require close intersectoral cooperation and in-depth understanding of the conditions underlying emerging and re-emerging disease outbreaks.

The project aims to integrate different scientific disciplines to create granular knowledge on the human-animal-environmental interfaces, disease spillovers, surveillance, laboratory diagnostics, and more. Using a community-based participatory and empowering strategy will promote sustainable and people-centred research and practice for effective prevention, preparedness and control of infectious disease outbreaks in Nigeria and globally.
Sustainability based on locally identified needs and locally available solutions is at the heart of the COPE project. The ultimate aim is to show that local communities – with some public health expert input – can identify and reduce their One Health challenges independently.

Overview of activities

This project will pilot a community-based participatory approach in a high burden Lassa fever community using a bottom up strategy within a One Health framework. The COPE strategy will allow communities to lead in the identification of their priority One Health challenges and further in the identification of sustainable local solutions for mitigation and adaptation. Technical support will be provided by the One Health project team consisting of anthropologists, physicians and veterinarians. Accompanied by a systematic collection of epidemiological data to measure the baseline and the impact of the strategies addressing the challenges, this approach is expected to empower the community from within and support community ownership of public health interventions. It will encourage critical thinking and utilization of local knowledge and innovations.

The COPE strategy, applied by the One Health project team and the community, is built on seven steps:

1. Community entry;
2. Needs assessment;
3. Standardized baseline One Health risk assessment;
4. Development of One Health interventions by the community;
5. Intervention implementation;
6. Standardized post-intervention One Health risk assessment;
7. Documentation.

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