One Health in the Argan Forest

Building on results we obtained this year about how people are affected by zoonotic diseases like rabies and leishmaniosis in the argan forest, and what  they know about such risks which can be fatal, we are preparing a broad health education campaign in local villages for next year. This campaign will raise awareness on the risks represented by these diseases and more importantly on how to prevent them through behavioral changes to break the disease cycle. Through our work this year, we now know that people are aware of rabies although they don’t know how it is transmitted nor how to prevent it or how important it is to vaccinate dogs.

Our work also showed that people did not know anything about another important disease affecting both people and dogs, leishmaniosis. In fact, we detected leishmaniosis to be present in local people and the local dog population but nobody there was really aware of this disease transmitted by sandflies. This disease can be quite debilitating for people, leaving affected people with disfiguring scars and psychosocial trauma.

 The objective of our One Health education campaign next year will be to bring behavioral changes that lead to break the transmission cycles of the disease, by making people aware of all the risks and symptoms of zoonotic diseases but of their roles in allowing disease transmission. What should they do when a dog attack them or children or if a dog bites somebody? How to stop being bitten by sandflies which live in crack walls or near waste dumps which can transmit leishmaniasis? Why do dogs need to be vaccinated again rabies?  

Through simple language and known health education techniques based mainly on pictures, we will train trainers in villages and target at least 3,000 people in villages in the region of Agadir and Drarga.  Your support is really needed to allow our specialist One Health team to conduct this highly important work next year which will save lives, especially of children.

We started to address the One health challenge represented by zoonotic disease in the argan forest last year by conducting rabies awareness campaigns in schools and dog vaccination campaigns in villages. This has led to a much better understanding by the local population of the risk represented by stray dogs and it allowed them to know what to do to avoid being bitten by dogs and to avoid the transmission of this fatal infection.

When visiting villages last year, the One Health team was able to identify that some another zoonotic disease affected the population: leishmaniasis.  This parasitic infection is transmitted through the bites of infected sandflies, which are tiny insects found in mud wall cracks and animal burrows. Contrary to mosquitoes, sandflies are able to live in  a multitude of environments as  they do not need water to complete their life cycle. They bite from dusk to dawn and are silent flyers, making their bite going unnoticed. After a few weeks, skin lesions develop and can take a very long time to heal, leaving affected people with disfiguring scars and psychosocial trauma. This disease is largely unknown from the local population.

As a first step in our task to improve people and animal health while conserving natural ecosystems, our One Health team started to investigate the role of stray dogs in the transmission of leishmaniasis so that adapted preventive and control measures can be developed accordingly. Once we know more about disease transmission in the argan forest, we’ll be able to inform and protect both human and animal populations in the most effective way, helping to reduce a health burden which is already considerable in the area.