 It is my pleasure to introduce Professor Jenga Munene to give his presentation that he prepared for this conference. So over to you, Professor Jenga Munene in absentia. So good morning for those who are in the region where we are and good night for those who are in the United States, I know is still at night. And good morning for those who are in countries like Germany, where the sun is have just risen. I want to greet you all on this particular morning and to present a short discussion on emerging pandemic threats and other group of challenges, implications of lessons learned on innovations and technology in one health education. So my name is Professor Jenga Munene. I am a very nice agent who have taught in the university for 34 years and have been very keen in research in one health. Having been involved a lot in doing research in Kibera where there is close interactions of humans and animals. And where as we will say sometimes do occur. And these are the issues that we need to look at when it comes to one health. I am also one of the founder deans of the One Health Eastern Central Africa, which was a share and now changed to Afro-Hoon. I am happy that it is growing and changing, but Professor Basilio of Makere has not changed. I think he is still the same strong and focused leader. And that's why Afro-Hoon is still growing. So I greet you all and welcome you to my short presentation. This slide shows people preparing to bury a person who died of COVID-19 last year. And one of the things that made COVID-19 such as care was the way we handled cases of people who died. The people responded with fear, they responded with apprehension, which is natural for things that people don't understand. And the way people are being treated when they were suspect cases of cases, suspect cases and instead of saying people who got infected with COVID, they became victims. And therefore the language itself and the fear that was instilled by arresting people who were suspected of COVID-19 created a very difficult position for many people. And that's why a lot of people ended up not presenting themselves in hospitals to be treated because of the stigma that was occurring as far as COVID-19 was concerned. But over the many years there has been notable pandemics in the last 100 years. The Spanish flu 1918 to 1919 and they say that in some places it went on up to 1922, which was a period of four years. So we are not yet through with four years and over 40 million people died out of the H1N1, the swine flu. What many people have never understood and scientists have yet to determine whether the H1N1 came from humans to pigs or it came from pigs to humans. But whichever way it ended up killing very many people in the world and the use of masks was intense at that time. The Asian flu, what they call the influenza pandemic, which was caused by H2N2 1956 to 1958, about two million people died. Influenza pandemic H3N2 1968 about a million people died. And the continuing pandemic, the HIV AIDS 1981 to date about that 6.3 million people have died of HIV up to the year 2020. But those of you who remember how HIV was in the 80s, people had the same phobia and fear like they do have for COVID-19 today. Saas 2002, 2004, a coronavirus, the deaths were a few, but it is good that the world acted very fast and contained the disease before widespread spread in the world. 774 people died, a small number compared to what have been lost. Swain flu influenza virus 2009. Interestingly, this one was caused by the same virus that caused the 1918, 1919 Spanish flu and 575,400 people died. Fortunately, it was also contained fairly fast and did not spread as quickly as has happened today. The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona 2012 to date is still spreading but road grade so far 941 people have died as of May 2020. And now the latest of our scare and what is killing many people. There are few people who don't know people who have died of COVID-19. From 2019 to date, so far 5.17 million have died and the numbers are growing by the day. It is something that is worrisome. But more interesting is what have corona does, corona has changed the way we do things. So what are the factors that have been influencing spread of diseases across boundaries and across populations. Human and animal interactions, eating habits, sexual behavior like HIV AIDS, human social behavior and activities, air travel and other human movements. These have been made when it comes to spread of coronavirus. Those of you who can remember this short history of the virus starting from Wuhan and literally spreading in the world within a very short time. This mainly was facilitated by human travel and the lockdowns are forward through the spread. Probably a much bigger population would have been lost had we not contained human travel. Other diseases like avian flu, bad migration, misinformation. Currently in Kenya and quite a few countries, not a few, many countries of the world is resistance vaccination. And this is mainly followed by misinformation. People are not being given the right information and our inability to counter that misinformation especially through the social media remains a big challenge to ensuring that vaccination occurs throughout all the vulnerable human population. So not following established proven protocols. Some people are still very resistant to wearing masks. This weekend I met a couple. The husband is very concerned because the wife is extremely resistant. She says she doesn't want to wear the mask and she doesn't want to be vaccinated. So the husband has been vaccinated. He wears a mask but he was saying please pray for me that my wife doesn't end up with coronavirus because I am extremely vulnerable with that. So the resistance has been great in terms of vaccinations and in terms of in terms of following protocols. I'm told by a friend of mine who lives in Belgium that there are some regions where they cannot talk about vaccination without the risk of getting backlash from their neighbor. So this is something that we all need to think through and ask ourselves whether we are actually acting on information or we are acting on rumors. This is a picture that was put on media on COVID-19 affecting lions in Singapore. And this was also happening to the people who are taking care of these lions. So the government agency said for Asiatic Lions at the night safari as well as one African lion at the Singapore Zoo had exhibited mild signs of sickness including coughing, sneezing, lethargy and therefore and it has been positive for COVID-19. And this was upon exposure to staff from Mandai Wildlife Group who later tested positive for COVID-19. Therefore we must ask ourselves is it possible that the current outbreak can be sustained and maintained within the animal population so that even as we vaccinate human beings that there can be risk of continued sustenance of the virus. The virus within the animal population. And this is important for us as scientists to consider when it comes to research on COVID-19 just like it is with diseases like rabies which have both a wild cycle, what we call the sylvastic cycle and the domestic cycle where the virus is maintained within the bats and within the wild canines. And then once it gets to the domestic canines stands up as a fair within the human population. We must be concerned about the emerging and re-emerging diseases. Emerging infections, a new or newly identified pathogen or syndrome that has been colonized over the last two or three decades that has resulted in new manifestations of infectious diseases. The emerging diseases or what they call resaging diseases known or previously identified pathogens or syndrome that is increasing in incidents expanding into new geographic areas affecting new population groups or threatening to increase in the near future. These are diseases that have been found around for decades or centuries but have come back in different form or locations. It is important for all of us to remember and I think that is something that all of us need to be reminded that 75% of emerging and re-emerging diseases are shared between animals and humans. And therefore we must get concerned that when we start having re-emerging diseases and emerging diseases. Emerging diseases, these have been the pandemics we have talked about. H5N1 avian influenza, the Nipa virus, headra virus, entro virus, SARS, hadta virus, pulmonary syndrome, rasa virus, midwist respiratory syndrome and now COVID-19. Those can be classified as emerging diseases because they were not there for a very long time. The prions, you remember the issue of the variant creigiford jacob disease which is a human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a product which is suspected to have moved from sheep to animal feeds or cattle feed and then bovine and then at the end of the day affecting humans. Bacteria 1s, E. coli 0157 H7, anthrax has remained as a threat because of its use in bioterrorism and protozoa diseases like cryptosporidiosis. Re-emerging or resaging diseases ebora, this mainly seems to be fueled by our eating habits of occasionally eating our neighbors, our near narratives, ips in the tropical forest, which is a very big risk. Liftovare fever, alaikre out-of-break every time we have excess rains because of the nature of its spread, the human monkeypox, the West Nile virus, denge fever, yeru fever and mawbag hemorrhagic fever. All these are resaging diseases and depending on the environment they can recur with the serious consequences. Bacteria corera, this is a disease known for many years, typhoid fever, diphtheria, plague, vancomycin resistant staphilococcus aureus and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, protozoa diseases, drug resistant malaria. And especially the issue of resistance to antibiotics or antimicrobials must remain as a top concern for all of us as human beings. We are not discovering new antimicrobials every so often, yet the continued abuse and misuse of antimicrobials either in the human population or in livestock remains a big challenge and continues to remain a threat to human beings in terms of disease control and containment of disease. Faktas are responsible for emerging and emerging of diseases, economic development, poverty, poor sanitation, land use and cross human animal interactions, climate change, human demographics and behavior, international travel and commerce and misuse of antimicrobials. Because as we talk about human economic development, too many things change, people tend to encourage to increase the agricultural output encroaching into forest areas, poverty, poor sanitation, land use and human interactions. All these are issues that we must get concerned as human beings as we continue to think about how to deal with that problem. Other major group of challenges that affect human and animal health, industrial waste, solid, liquid and gases. All of us know of situations where gases or liquids or solids have found their way into the food chain. In the wrong land, either through animals or directly through to us, we end up getting into problems with pollutants, pollution of freshwater sources, service and underground. Too much nitrogen, too much fertilizer, too many pesticides. These are products and requirements when you are doing commercial agriculture and that has tended to cause serious pollution of water. And the world must be concerned because the fresh water constitutes an extremely small percentage of a global water volume. Most of the water worldwide is only about 2% is fresh water. The rest of the water almost 98% over 95% of water is salty and therefore not suitable for human consumption. Social media and improving information on the worldwide. This has been a disaster in this COVID-19 period. All manner of falsehoods have been spread that the vaccine is people are being tagged with chips and all manner of things people are going to become infertile. Men will stop producing and so will women and all those things have been spread to an extent that people have come to believe that it is possible that they are causing problems and we must re-address ourselves to the value that false descriptions of what vaccines you resort to lead to. Let me now take a little time and talk a little about one health. One health recognizes the interdependence of human animal environmental health and that holistic approach of well-being for all will lead to improved health outcomes and enhanced receipts. Because we live in one world, our animals, ourselves and in that environment is where we grow, that's what we eat, it's where we live. We don't have another world to live in and therefore one health becomes a global conflict between ourselves, between our animals and between our environment. So that our environment produces what we need to provide us the environment in which we live and suitable for both our animals and ourselves. And a breakdown on either side will always lead to a problem on the other side. When we have human activities that destroy the environment, it will have consequences in health, it will have consequences in animal welfare, it will have consequences in human welfare. If you look at this presentation, this was in Kibera, you can see very nice dots, scavenging on open drains and human beings doing their own things. And the risk of course is that these dots will produce eggs which will be eaten or they themselves will be food on the table. But at the end of the day you must ask yourself what will happen if probably there is contamination of this food and people end up eating it. What is the composition of what these animals are eating? That cannot be described unless an analysis is done on the content of the water flowing, the waste water. So these animals can be a big source of problems to the people who are waiting to eat those animals either themselves as meat or their products as eggs. These are pigs scavenging in open sewers, open drains. They will still find their way on the table for people to eat. And you must ask ourselves what is the repercussion, what is the effect, what are the right outcomes. Either the animals will have contamination of bacteria or they will have metas within the muscles which in itself creates a risk to human health. See this kind of situation, children doing different things in an open dump site. The risks for these children being picked by shaps and injured, the risk of briefing wrong things and even getting themselves infected. Because the composition of the garbage, nobody knows what it is, it could be medical materials, it could be industrial materials, it could be a risk to these children. And therefore the interaction between the environment and the people who are living in this kind of environment becomes a very real risk to human health. So we must ask ourselves what are the healthcare innovations. Healthcare innovation is to develop or improve health policies, systems, products and technologies and services. And delivery methods that improve people's health with a special focus on needs of vulnerable populations. And there have been several advancements, the electronic health records, the M Health, the telemedicine, telehealth, photo technology, self-service kiosks, remote monitoring tools, sensor and wearable technology. These days you can wear a watch that tells you the rate of your pass, the kilometers you have walked and the balance you need to walk to burn enough calories, wireless communication. And in Kenya, during COVID-19, there was great increase in the use of mobile money. We have been a leader in electronic money transfer. And this reduced enormously the need for people to go to the shops and correct cash, which in itself was a big innovation and it is important to appreciate the government for ensuring that the charges were reduced for small amounts of money and therefore taking care of the highly vulnerable groups. Positive effects of technology, they have helped in tracking of chronic illnesses and communicate vital information to doctors. The health apps have helped in track diets, exercise and mental information. Online medical services records that give access to test results and allow you to fill prescriptions. But your doctors, this was and is very hard during this COVID-19 pandemic. People are waiting going to hospitals simply because they think the hospitals are very high risk. And therefore a lot of discussions occur between doctors and the patients. Is the genetic profiling of different stereotypes on variants of pathogens much easier than it was before and highly automated vaccine production and fast supply chains. All these are products of technology. So what are the lessons on COVID-19 response? The first thing I would like to say is that COVID-19 has been a real disrupter of a normal life. As a teaching institution ourselves, we had to close the face to face land. But our response determined on whether we were going to survive as an enterprise or we were going to sink as an enterprise. And as a response, we ensured that we translated from face to face learning to digital learning within three days. The beauty is that bureaucracy, we don't have bureaucracy and therefore we are updating our systems to connect to this and we are back to normal teaching. And the lessons that we learned were very, very deep in terms of the value of other players when it comes to COVID-19. There is need in my view for continued preparation for an expected outbreak of disease. I don't think there was a country that was ready for COVID-19. That's why even the most developed countries had, when the infections became too many, they had to pinch tents and create hospitals out of parking lots. We didn't have enough respirators and neither did we have enough ICU beds globally. And therefore in my view it is important for us to continue preparing for the unknown in order to avoid situations where we can land with what we landed with last year and part of this year. The world needs to be better connected and institutions need to be more connected. For us, we were extremely lucky that Kenneth, which supplies internet services to institutions, to universities and institutions, was extremely supportive. We were also very, very lucky that Safaripon came in and supported us a lot in giving bundles for our students at very subsidized costs. And therefore the interconnections that we had, the issue of Christ, the Kenya Library Information Services, availing online material to our students enabled them to continue with learning because of the connectivity. And therefore it is important that the world be better connected and the world institutions be better connected. I think there is better aggressive and factual information through all medias of communication to counter misinformation, especially from social media. Thus making it difficult to contain outbreaks like it is happening with COVID-19. And I think this to me is an issue that we need to address very aggressively through the normal media, through the social media, so that people can see a different view of what is being given versus what is a fact. The other thing is avoiding stigmatization and providing affected persons, making other affected persons from seeking medical support in time. This to me was one of the biggest problems of managing COVID-19 at the beginning. People are afraid of saying they are sick. And quite a number of people died in their homes avoiding hospitals, avoiding medical care because they were being treated like they are literally the cause of the problem they were in. And considering that the virus is spread through air, literally there is no contribution for the person, unless of course it goes to the world parties and to the happening in other countries where people want to be infected so that they are not vaccinated. Greater acceptance and practice of e-commerce is a big thing and expanding education on one health in schools and colleges for people to appreciate the need of interconnection of animals, environment and animal health. We need to address the issue of world creation to remove people from extremes of poverty that make them very vulnerable. So we need to create wealth and ensure that people are not living in environments that are totally unacceptable for human habitation. The issue of controlled investment in mitigation against pollution I think is an issue that is global and something we need to think about and provision of sanitary facilities and proper sanitation to avoid situations where human population are exposed unnecessarily to either pathogens or pollutants. Being self-learned in all key needs to handle pandemics and other needs you are aware and all of us are aware that the supply chain were grossly affected by COVID-19 and travel restrictions and therefore every nation must make effort to ensure that they are self-learned on things that they require to handle issues like pandemics. It calls upon in my view for the government to reconsider very seriously either here or in other countries the issue of supply chain for things that we require as life. Then accept the new normal of online meetings whether family like the one we are holding now research or in politics. I think one of the biggest challenges in my personal view is that political rallies in Kenya should be banned and all candidates be put to hunt their votes in the media. Now with a new Omicron variant which is now affecting even people who have been vaccinated the whole population is put at risk by political meetings and I think it is only responsible that anybody who wants to ask for votes should do it online and be using media rather than for public meetings and I think we should also shorten the periods of campaigns otherwise there is a lot of wastage of human talent and human labour. I think that brings me to the end of my presentation and I want to say this ladies and gentlemen it has been a pleasure to share with you my few thoughts about how we should handle the issue of one health. I don't think this any presentation can take cognize of all the facts that are required for one health but it behoves all of us to appreciate that the world we are in is highly interactive and our environment and our animals and human as human beings need to share the world and ensure that we live in it in health both for our animals and ourselves because essentially we are all interconnected. I want to wish you everybody well and God's blessings and play that all of you remain safe.