Governance

Management of the ICONZ project is directed by a Management Board. The Management Board will be guided by an Advisory Council (Steering Group). General day-to-day organization of ICONZ will be conducted by a Secretariat.

Management Board (Coordinators & WP Leaders):

Leader WP1 – Management and coordination
Leader WP2 – Mapping global research on neglected zoonoses
Leader WP3 – Knowledge and information on neglected zoonoses
Leader WP4 – Improvement and development of disease control tools
Leader WP5 – Integrated intervention packages for neglected bacterial zoonoses
Leader WP6 – Integrated intervention packages for dog / small ruminant-associated neglected zoonoses
Sarah Gabriel Leader WP7 – Integrated intervention packages for neglected pig-associated zoonoses
Leader WP8 – Integrated intervention packages for neglected vector-borne zoonoses
Leader WP9 – Socio-economic and institutional aspects
Leader WP10 – Cultural aspects, gender issues, traditional knowledge and messaging
Leader WP11 – Capacity building through technology transfer and training
Leader WP12 – Communication and dissemination

– Mali
– Morocco
– Nigeria
Issac Phiri – Zambia

Advisory Council Members

Secretariat:

Sue Welburn (Coordinator)
Iona Beange (Communications)
Anna Walker (Case Study Manager)
Pauline McManus (Finance)
Stephanie Brickman (ICONZ Magazine)

Advisory Council Member:

Katinka de Balogh

Katinka de Balogh is of Dutch and Hungarian origins and grew up in Latin-American. She studied veterinary medicine in Berlin and Munich and graduated and obtained her doctorate in tropical parasitology from the Tropical Institute of the University of Munich in 1984. Later she specialised in Tropical animal production and health in France and in Veterinary Public Health (VPH) in the Netherlands. After a short career as a zoo veterinarian in the Rotterdam Zoo she moved to Africa where he worked for a total of 9 years initially as a district veterinary officer in rural Zambia and later as lecturer at the veterinary faculties of Lusaka, Zambia and Maputo, Mozambique. Thereafter she worked for 5 years at the Utrecht veterinary faculty in the Netherlands as lecturer and international project coordinator. In the late 80”s she had spent two years as a young professional at the Veterinary Public Health Unit of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. In 2002 she started working at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy in the Pro-poor livestock policy facility and as coordinator for avian influenza projects and as response manager of the Crisis Management Centre of FAO. Presently she leads the global Veterinary Public Health activities of FAO where everyday she uses at least 5 of her 7 languages.

Advisory Council Member:

Dr Chioma (Chichi) Amajoh

Assistant Director, Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, Nigeria and Head, Integrated Management (IVM) National Malaria and Vector Control Division in the Department of Public Health and Deputy Director, Roll Back Malaria, Nigeria.

Chioma is a Nigerian Public Health Specialist, Medical Parasitologist, and Health Administrator.

Dr. Chioma Amajoh has more than 20 years of experience managing and providing technical leadership for the design and implementation of integrated vector management, particularly indoor residual spraying (IRS), insecticide-treated nets, and long-lasting insecticide-treated nets. She is currently a temporary consultant for the World Health Organization. Previously, she was a member of a team that drafted the IRS Regional Framework/Guidelines in 2006. In 2000, Dr. Amajoh served on a committee that drafted the technical document for the Abuja Declaration at the African Summit on Roll Back Malaria.

Advisory Council Member:

Dr. François-Xavier Meslin

Neglected Zoonotic Diseases
Office of the Director Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD), Cluster HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (HTM)
World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters
Geneva, Switzerland

François-Xavier Meslin is Doctor in Veterinary Medicine (from Lyon, France) who, after a first experience in livestock development in Thailand, specialized in tropical veterinary medicine, veterinary public health and field epidemiology. After spending two years in West Africa in another animal production and health project he joined the World Heath Organization as manager of an intercountry project for human and dog rabies prevention and control and also provided oversight of the WHO Zoonoses Control Programme in the Mediterranean area.

Dr Meslin has occupied various positions in WHO including the supervision of WHO activities dealing with antimicrobial resistance in human pathogens, public health response to biological weapons, human African trypanosomiasis and anthroponotic leishmaniasis control in addition to zoonoses prevention and control and Veterinary Public Health.

Dr Meslin has been leading WHO activities on BSE and other TSE from 1989 onwards and as well as those on xenogenic infections and xenotransplantation during the late nineties and early 2000. He co-edited the OECD/WHO report on xenotransplantation surveillance issued in 2001. Dr Meslin works in close collaboration with other international organizations such as FAO and the OIE of international surveillance and response to emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases including H5N1 related activities .in Hong Kong 1997/98 and during the new H5N1 epizootic during the years 2004-2005. He was co-organizer of the WHO/FAO/OIE Consultation on “Avian Influenza and Human Health: Risks reduction in producing, marketing and living with animals in Asia” held in Kuala Lumpur in July 2005. and coordinated the development of the WHO “Questions and Answers” on Avian Influenza. In relation to animals and foods also in 2005. He has published a number of articles and guidelines on parasitic and bacterial zoonoses, risk factors in zoonoses emergence and risk communication. . He was the convener of the WHO/FAO/OIE International Consultation on Emerging Zoonoses held in Geneva in May 2004 and more recently of the WHO/DFID-AHP meeting on “The control of neglected zoonoses: a route to poverty alleviation”, Geneva 20-21 September 2006 and the international Conference on “Integrated Control of Neglected Zoonotic Diseases in Africa” held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007. He has published many articles in the field of zoonoses and VPH one the latest being Public Health Impact of zoonoses and international approaches for their detection and containment in Veterinaria Italiania, Volume 44(4), October – December 2008, pp 583-590. He is assessor of the Rabies in the Mediterranean Area (Rabmed) and of the International Control of Neglected Zoonoses in Africa (ICONZ) programmes both EU Funded.

In the rabies field in particular he was lead editor of Laboratory Techniques in Rabies, WHO, 1996. He was the convenor of the 8th Expert Committee on Rabies held in Geneva in 1991 and of the first WHO Expert Consultation on Rabies held in WHO in October 2004. He has recently authored or co-authored articles on travellers and rabies (Journal of travel medicine, 2005), the re-assessment of the burden of rabies in Asia and Africa (WHO Bulletin, 2005) and India (International Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007), the safety and efficacy of oral vaccine for dogs (Vaccine 2006), the rabies chapter in with International travel and health (WHO,2009). He is the manager of a $ 10 million award from the Gates Foundation for the elimination of human and dog rabies in Developing Countries.

Advisory Council Member:

Dr. Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe

Dr. Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe was born on July 1, 1955 in the Iganga District of Easter Uganda. She is now married with four biological children and several adopted children. She obtained a Bachelor of Medicine, a Bachelor of Surgery, and a Master of Medicine from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. Her activity in politics began when she was elected village leader. She went on to serve both the youth and women’s wings of the Democratic Party. Her position in politics grew higher and higher until she was a member of parliament and then was elected vice president. She is currently in her second term.
Dr. Kazibwe has put much of her focus onto women’s issues. Among her goals are decreasing the high illiteracy rate, promoting social justice, and advocating affirmative action for women and other marginalized groups. As an educated woman, Dr. Kazibwe feels that the way for women in Uganda to find social equality is through education. Her mission is “to see the emancipation of rural women through functional skills development and access to micro-financing to ensure internally generated improvement.”

Dr. Kazibwe is also noted for her activism against corruption. She is currently working on creating the National Integrity Movement. She has worked to mobilize the media in an effort to give the rural areas of Uganda a better picture of the government and Presidency. She has worked hard to fight poverty by working with farmers in an attempt to modernize agriculture. As Dr. Kazibwe fights for these important issues she is also a role model to women through out Uganda.

ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBER:

Prof Richard Kock

Chair Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases, Pathology and Infectious Diseases Department, Royal Veterinary College, London, UK

Richard Kock is a dedicated wildlife veterinarian and conservationist. From 1983 to 2010 he was attached to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL); working in zoological medicine from 1983-1990 in the UK, then seconded abroad from 1991 to 2006.

He worked on free-ranging wildlife health with the national wildlife management authority (Kenya Wildlife Service KWS) in Nairobi 1991-1998 to start a new Veterinary Department. This initiative is now a model in the region with 72 permanent staff.Throughout this time he was involved in research, management and conservation initiatives in the region and built networks and wildlife health capacity.

From 1999 – 2005 he was seconded to a regional body, African Union Inter African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) to work on rinderpest and other transboundary animal diseases at the wildlife, livestock and human interface. This involved the organisation and implementation of epidemiological research (sero-surveillance and outbreak investigation) in wildlife species throughout eastern, central and western Africa based out of Nairobi.

In 2001, he detected and ensured diagnosis of the last globally known epidemic of rinderpest, which occurred in wild buffalo in Meru National Park, Kenya. He also worked on a range of other infectious diseases including Pestes des Petits Ruminants, Rift Valley Fever, anthrax and other wildlife diseases.

He returned to the UK in 2006 and worked until 2010 as a Programme Manager at ZSL, running regional conservation projects in deserts and rangelands in Africa, Middle East and Asia with a wildlife health perspective. this included overall responsibility for management of the King Khalid Wildlife Research Centre near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In 2011 he took up a chair in Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases at the Pathology and Infectious Diseases Department, Royal Veterinary College, Hawkshead Campus, London, UK. He has been engaged closely with the evolving One Health initiative and in promoting wildlife and environment in the health agenda. He is an adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University, Grafton USA and co-chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Wildlife Health Specialist Group.

Advisory Council Member (Chair):

Professor Paul Gibbs, BVSc, PhD, FRCVS

Professor of Virology, Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

Desk phone 1-; Mobile phone 1-

Professional Focus: One World: One Health by focusing on the Control and Prevention of Emerging and Foreign Animal Diseases including those of Zoonotic Importance through Research, Education, and Policy Development

Paul Gibbs graduated as a veterinarian from the University of Bristol in England in 1967 and subsequently focused his career on the epidemiology, control and prevention of emerging viral diseases. For nearly 10 years he worked at the Institute of Animal Health in the UK on diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, bluetongue, sheep pox, and rinderpest. In 1979, he joined the newly established College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida. In Florida, apart from teaching, he has worked on several emerging problems and foreign animal diseases that threaten the USA, most recently West Nile virus encephalitis in horses, canine influenza, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The focus of his work often takes him overseas to investigate emerging problems. Paul is a consultant to several government/international agencies and pharmaceutical companies.

Paul was Director of the University of Florida’s International Center from 1994 to 1999 and, among other responsibilities, worked on the Peace Process in the Middle East.