CFAES Give Today
FST

Department of Food Science and Technology

CFAES

CDC award to combat antimicrobial resistance

Dec. 14, 2021

Note: Dr. Jiyoung Lee who has a joint appointment between Food Science and Technology and Environmental Health Sciences in the College of Public Health, is an investigator with Ohio State’s Global One Health initiative (GOHi).

The Global One Health initiative (GOHi) has been awarded funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to enhance detection, response and prevention of antimicrobial resistance and associated health threats in hospitals in Ethiopia.

GOHi and several Ohio State University partners will collaborate with the Government of Ethiopia to strengthen workforce capacity within a network of hospitals and a central laboratory as well as processes and systems with the goal to provide rapid detection, response and prevention of infectious disease threats.

As part of a five-year cooperative agreement through 2026, the grant will provide $800,000 in funding for the first year, and allows GOHi to continue its One Health-related work to bolster infection prevention and control measures, implement laboratory quality assurance to maintain high levels of accuracy and proficiency and build capacity through training, mentoring and evaluation. Funding beyond the first year will be based on satisfactory programmatic progress and availability of funds.

GOHi’s project is part of the CDC’s Global Action in Healthcare Network, one of two global networks established by the CDC to combat antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases that will span more than 50 countries worldwide. The CDC has awarded $22 million to nearly 30 organizations around the globe.

The continued use of antimicrobials in health care facilities has resulted in the emergence of a variety of antimicrobial resistant pathogens over the past decade, which has caused the rapid spread of disease, serious health conditions and patients dying from preventable and treatable diseases.

“Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an increasing threat to global health security, having economic, social and political ramifications worldwide and puts an excess burden on resource-poor countries, such as Ethiopia,” said Wondwossen Gebreyes, executive director of GOHi. “To combat AMR, it is critical to implement a collaborative One Health approach that brings together multiple disciplines working globally to address the spread of disease, promote health and emphasize the connection among humans, animals, plants and the environment.”

Since 2009, GOHi has been working extensively on a range of One Health-related projects targeting laboratory, surveillance and healthcare workforce capacity through applied education, training and research globally.

Over the next five years, the GOHi team and the Ethiopian government will work to ensure the continued collection and entry of quality surveillance and laboratory data to monitor trends and trigger alarms for potential outbreaks at facilities. Successful implementation of these and other activities will improve network preparedness and response to antimicrobial resistance threats.

This award is GOHi’s second from the CDC this year. In April GOHi received $5.61 million in funding from the CDC to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthen Ethiopia’s public health system capacity for small- and large-scale disease outbreaks and emergencies.

Ohio State partners on this new initiative include GOHi's Gebreyes as principal investigator along with the colleges of Engineering (Xia Ning), Medicine (Shu-Hua Wang, Joan-Miquel Balada-Llasat, Xia Ning), Public Health (Saira Nawaz, Jiyong Lee), Veterinary Medicine (Zelalem Mekuria) as well as affiliated entity partners at Global One Health, LLC Ethiopia (Getnet Yimer, Ebba Watola).

The Global Action in Healthcare Network is a global collaborative led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to enhance global capacities to detect and respond to infectious disease threats in healthcare. GOHi is proud to partner with CDC, as supported through Cooperative Agreement CK-21-2104. CDC is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this announcement do not necessarily represent the policies of CDC or HHS and should not be considered an endorsement by the U.S. Federal Government.

Original article from Office of International Affairs