As a part of important gathering of research, development and partnering for the global vaccine strategies, our One Health epidemiologist, post-doctoral fellow, Osama Ahmed Hassan, was an invited speaker at the World Vaccine Congress Europe under the theme of “One Health”.
Osama who is an expert with substantial experience on Rift Valley fever in East and West Africa and the Arabian Peninsula gave a talk entitled “New insight and the challenges associated with the prevention and control of Rift Valley fever”.
Rift Valley fever (RVF) is an emerging zoonotic viral vector-borne disease that affects both livestock and humans. The disease causes abortion and death in livestock as well as severe illness in humans, which makes it an important candidate for One Health prevention and control. RVF led to many outbreaks with devastating health and economic impacts in Africa, and has expanded to the Arabian Peninsula in the year 2000. There is great concern that RVF could be a cross-border threat to new geographic regions under the climate change hazards, this why the topic of RVF was highlighted in such an EU expert gathering of scientists.
Currently, only few livestock are vaccinated in Africa against RVF and the vaccine has limitations and difficulties for access. There is no vaccine for humans. The main message from Osama was to advocate for new vaccine strategies against the disease. “I am glad that the Centre for Global Health, University of Oslo, is contributing in such important global health discussion”, said Osama.