On the Vanguard of One Health with Dr. Hellen Amuguni, VG11
A hunter in Côte d’Ivoire consults a chatbot on his phone when he encounters an animal with symptoms. Women smallholder farmers in rural Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda have access to vaccines for their livestock to prevent the spread of Newcastle disease and Rift Valley Fever. Middle and high school students in Rwanda are equipped with One Health skills and knowledge to be prepared for the next pandemic. Championing these innovative One Health programs around the world is Tufts University—and among the leadership of the One Health charge at Tufts is Dr. J. Hellen Amuguni, VG11 (Ph.D.).
Through myriad One Health initiatives and research, Amuguni (she/her) has elevated women and communities worldwide. The project lead of Tufts One Health Collaborative and project director of the recently concluded USAID STOP Spillover project, as well as a number of federally funded grants over the years, she focuses on infectious disease detection and prevention, building capacity in communities throughout Africa and Asia to address emerging pandemics, while also training future One Health leaders here at Tufts and abroad. She has a dual appointment at Tufts as professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine.
The impetus behind her prodigious career was her mother.
“From the time I was a kid, I knew I wanted to work on social justice and increase women's empowerment because of my mom. She was such a powerful influence on us, beginning to think about the role of women and girls,” Amuguni says of growing up with her family in Kenya, at a time when girls had limited opportunities, and most did not attend school. “It was different for us. My mom had this vision, and she told us over and over again, ‘You are going to college, you’re going to get a career, you're going to stand up on your own, and you're going to do things that you love to do. Don't ever let anyone pull you down because you're a woman.’ And she didn't just do that to us, she did that to many girls in the village.”
After earning her D.V.M. from the University of Nairobi, Amuguni spent several years with development organizations throughout the Horn of Africa, establishing livestock immunization programs and training local women to run these efforts. She continued her studies in the United States, earning her master’s degree in international development and social change with a focus on gender at Clark University.
Nearly two decades ago, Tufts and One Health came into Amuguni’s life. As a Ph.D. student in infectious disease and public health at Cummings School, she found the university’s One Health approach aligned with her own ethos. “One Health is inherent in Tufts' global work, inherent in their capacity building of international communities. One Health came in as this umbrella under which I could do community development. It brings the community that I'm so passionate about to the table.”
One Health initiatives focus on the intersection of humans, animals, and the environment in addressing global health issues. Amuguni’s role in One Health at Tufts is researching infectious disease spread, supporting local communities to reduce risk of exposure to emerging pandemics and implement solutions and interventions, and identifying social, ecological, and gender issues that limit communities’ participation in these endeavors.
When Amuguni was appointed to the faculty at Cummings School, she became Tufts’ senior technical lead for USAID’s Emerging Pandemics Threats RESPOND and One Health Workforce projects. For eight years, she led efforts to establish systems and programs to handle potential infectious disease outbreaks in African and Asian communities, many of which had experienced Ebola and Lassa virus outbreaks.
“We have to think of on-the-ground, simple, culturally appropriate tools, and we have to think partnerships because we want to build capacity,” Amuguni says of the projects.
In tandem with these efforts, Amuguni created graduate courses and programs for the Africa One Health University Network and the Southeast Asia One Health University Network to train local community members on outbreak investigation and response.
Amuguni also spearheaded SheVax+, a gender and livestock vaccine innovation grant funded by the International Development Research Centre. As project lead, she oversaw the four-year initiative giving rural women smallholder farmers access to vaccines for their herds of goats, sheep, and poultry to prevent diseases like Peste des Petits Ruminant, Newcastle disease, contagious caprine pleuropneumonia, and Rift Valley Fever, in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. These diseases, although vaccinable, are devastating to rural farmers.
Tufts was selected to lead the $100 million Strategies to Prevent Spillover (STOP Spillover) One Health grant funded by USAID, and Amuguni became project director in 2023. Supported by deputy directors, Drs. Jon Gass and Felicia Nutter, they worked with local governments and community members across six African and Southeast Asian countries to build capacity to identify high risk interfaces, control zoonotic diseases at their source before they became pandemics, establish early detection systems to help recognize critical spillover events when they occur, and develop interventions that reduce risk of exposure among human populations, turning it into one of the most successful projects funded by USAID.
“You're co-creating with the community, giving the community power to make the impact,” says Amuguni. “We brought them to the table and said, ‘You tell us what you want your outcomes to be, you map out your road, and we will support you.’ We want the medical doctor, the vet, the engineer, to sit at the table and think together as a group. We want that gender specialist, that social scientist at the table.”
This multi-disciplinary approach, integral to One Health, starts at Tufts, where Amuguni draws on faculty across Tufts’ schools. From infectious disease epidemiologists at Tufts’ School of Medicine to international relations specialists at the Fletcher School, Amuguni’s One Health teams tap into Tufts’ vast network of expertise. For example, environmental engineers from the Friedman School developed innovative tests for STOP Spillover wastewater surveillance programs in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. School of Engineering colleagues designed a paper strip for farmers and nurses to detect resistant pathogens on site and incorporate artificial intelligence into One Health projects, such as creating chatbots for hunters and traders to answer health questions in the field.
“One Health means having a holistic approach towards solving complex health challenges because we cannot do it in silos,” she explains. “Someone from the Friedman School has a different hat on than I do, and therefore their thinking is different. We are working on infectious disease detection, surveillance, and antimicrobial resistance—these are complex problems that are starting with animals, they're involving the environment and humans. They're involving economics, they're involving engineering, so we have to think that way if we want to solve this problem.”
Amuguni’s fieldwork has translated to a trove of published research disseminating One Health findings, guidance, training programs, and curricula, and underscoring the benefits of empowering women smallholder farmers to access livestock vaccines.
As the principal investigator of the One Health Collaborative grant, Amuguni mentors and trains upcoming One Health leaders to spread and carry on this work. She directs Cummings School-University of Global Health Equity-University of Rwanda International One Health Fellowship, training a network of One Health leaders to minimize public health threats in their countries and communities. For the Tufts One Health Summer Research Project, Amuguni partners Cummings School students with international students on One Health initiatives in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Rwanda. She additionally oversees One Health for Kids, developing lesson plans, tools, and trainings for middle and high school teachers in Rwanda to teach students to recognize public health risks early. At Tufts, Amuguni teaches courses on global health, infectious disease, diversity, and gender.
Amuguni’s future endeavors will build on the success of her previous projects, continuing to collaborate with faculty across Tufts schools to expand networks and initiatives to prevent and respond to infectious disease spread in Africa, Asia, and South America.
“This has been a great journey for me, and it continues to be,” says Amuguni. “We are so excited about where our countries are going. We gave them the voice and the tools, and that means even when we leave, they're still running with it, continuing to do the work we started. I am grateful that Cummings School has provided me with a platform to pursue an unconventional and exciting career path in Global One Health and international development, so here’s to the next chapter.”
Source: https://vet.tufts.edu/
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