2026 (No. 2)
AHEAD Update
Dear AHEAD Colleagues,
Welcome to the latest issue of the AHEAD Update. As always, if you would like to post an item in the next Update, please just send it to us – thanks.
Join African Parks for a knowledge exchange webinar focused on One Health, featuring:
- Dr. Denis Siantumbu - Rabies Control at the Wildlife-Community Interface: Lessons from Liuwa Plain National Park.
- Prof. Steve Osofsky - Beyond Fences: Policy Options for Wildlife, Livelihoods and Transboundary Animal Disease Management in Southern Africa.
Join the meeting here: Microsoft Teams link
Fellowship Opportunity
Wildlife Health Fellows Program
The Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health is excited to announce an amazing opportunity for our next generation of wildlife health / One Health leaders. We anticipate that these three-year fellowships (for DVMs or equivalents, PhDs and/or DVM/PhDs) will be highly competitive, with up to 3 positions potentially being awarded this cycle.
New Video
Foot and Mouth Disease: A Familiar Foe in Formidable New Form
New findings from the University of Pretoria’s Professor Armanda Bastos suggest some beef processing requirements – such as carcass deboning and deglanding – may no longer be scientifically justified as components of commodity-based trade.
Additional New Resources
KAZA TFCA (2026) Protocol for Sampling Important Wildlife Diseases in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA).
This protocol provides a field guide and checklist for investigating wildlife mortality in the KAZA region, available in both English and Portuguese.
Stein, AB & Fuller, TK (2026) First Sale of Certified Wildlife Friendly® Beef in Africa.
Oryx
The first sale of Certified Wildlife Friendly™ beef in Africa highlights an innovative model for coexistence-based conservation in Botswana’s Okavango region.
Pennisi, E (2026) Foot-and-Mouth Disease Explodes in South Africa.
Science
Foot and mouth disease is spreading rapidly in cattle as the FAO warns of threats in other countries.
Zanamwe, E & Ahmadi, BV (2026) Global and Regional FMD Situation Update.
TAFS Forum Conference
FAO provides an update on both the global and SADC-specific FMD situation, highlighting current trends, regional risks, and the way forward.
Othusitse, L et al. (2026) In Vitro Assessment of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Immunogenicity: Advances, Challenges, and Ethical Considerations.
Frontiers in Veterinary Science
This review examines the evolving landscape of in vitro methods for evaluating FMD vaccine potency, highlighting both advances made and the key challenges still to be overcome.
Agbajelola, V & Raghaven, RK (2026) A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Population-Based Anthrax Prevalence in Africa with a One Health Narrative Synthesis of Outbreak Surveillance.
Frontiers in Public Health
Anthrax remains a persistent challenge in Africa. This synthesis highlights the need for a coordinated One Health approach to improve surveillance and early detection.
Sichalwe, M et al. (2026) Epidemiological Investigation of an Anthrax Outbreak at the Wildlife-Human Interface in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, Zambia, October-November 2025.
The Health Press
On 30 October 2025, a dead hippopotamus from Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia was fed to 36 captive lions, causing morbidity and mortalities, prompting an outbreak investigation.
Brown, D (2026) African Elephant Genomes Reveal Ancient Mixing – and Modern Pressures.
Mongabay
A continent-wide genomic study reveals that African elephants are becoming increasingly isolated by habitat fragmentation, reducing long-distance gene flow and underscoring the urgent need to restore connectivity.
Friswold, B et al. (2026) Fence Removal Enhances Elephant Movement and Promotes Behavioural, Physiological and Ecological Functioning.
Ecology and Evolution
Fence removal may offer an alternative or complementary approach to elephant population management by easing spatial constraints and redistributing ecological pressure across the landscape.
Upcoming Meetings
Wildlife Disease Association (WDA) Conference
26-31 Jul 2026, Chicago, USA
The 74th annual WDA conference will be centered around the theme "Thriving Together: Urban One Health and Ecosystem Resiliency.”
9th World One Health Congress (WOHC)
4-7 Sep 2026, Lisbon, Portugal
WOHC 2026 will emphasize One Health science and the science-policy interface. Registration is now open.
Again, if you have items for the next AHEAD Update, please just let us know – thanks.
Yours in One Health,
Steve & Shirley
Steve Osofsky, DVM
Cornell University, College of Veterinary Medicine
Jay Hyman Professor of Wildlife Health & Health Policy
Director, AHEAD Program
Director, Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health
s.osofsky@cornell.edu
Shirley Atkinson, MSc
Cornell University, College of Veterinary Medicine
AHEAD Program Coordinator
Associate Director, Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health
s.atkinson@cornell.edu
What is AHEAD?
AHEAD works to create enabling environments that allow different and often competing sectors to literally come to the same table and find collaborative ways forward to address challenges at the interface of wildlife health, livestock health, and human health and livelihoods. We convene stakeholders and provide technical support and resources for projects locally identified as priorities. AHEAD, one of the first applied One Health programs, recognizes the need to look at health, disease, and the environment together, while always taking a given region's socioeconomic, political, and policy context into account.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
New 2024 KAZA Disease Risk Assessment Fencing Analysis |
Veterinary Fences in the KAZA TFCA:
Assessment of Livestock Disease Risks of Potential Removal of Specific Fence
Sections, with an Emphasis on the Botswana-Namibia Border |
|
| Rosen, L. E., Amuthenu, N. S., Atkinson, S. J., Babayani, N. D., Elago, S. A. T., Hikufe, E., Mafonko, B. R., Mbeha, B., Mokopasetso, M., Motshegwa, K., Nkgowe, C., Penrith M-L., Ramokwena, E. M., Ramsden, N., Segale, K., Sharpe, J., Shilongo, A., Shoombe, K. K., Shuro, T., Thololwane, O. I., van Rooyen, J. & Osofsky, S. A. (2024). Veterinary Fences in the KAZA TFCA: Assessment of Livestock Disease Risks of Potential Removal of Specific Fence Sections, with an Emphasis on the Botswana-Namibia Border. AHEAD Programme, Cornell University on behalf of the KAZA Animal Health Sub Working Group. 300 pp. |
|
AHEAD
Book |
|
Osofsky,
S.A., Cleaveland, S., Karesh, W.B., Kock, M.D., Nyhus,
P.J., Starr, L., and A. Yang, (eds.). 2005. Conservation
and Development Interventions at the Wildlife/Livestock
Interface: Implications for Wildlife, Livestock and
Human Health. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge,
UK. xxxiii and 220 pp.
Downloadable PDFs of
whole book/each section available by visiting the AHEAD
Launch Proceedings page. Hard copies can be ordered
by e-mailing books@iucn.org |
|
|
Our video clips use the Quicktime
plugin.
Get it free here! |
|
|
What
is AHEAD?
Animal & Human Health for the Environment
And Development was launched at the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress
in Durban, South Africa. By assembling a ‘dream team’ of
veterinarians, ecologists, biologists, social and economic
scientists, agriculturists, wildlife managers, public health
specialists and others from across East and southern Africa,
we were fortunate to have tapped into some of the most innovative
conservation and development thinking on the African continent-
and AHEAD was born. Since then, a range of programs addressing
conservation, health, and concomitant development challenges
have been launched with the support of a growing list of implementing
partners and donors who see the intrinsic value of the One
World, One Health approach.
AHEAD is a convening, facilitative mechanism, working to create
enabling environments that allow different and often competing
sectors to literally come to the same table and find collaborative
ways forward to address challenges at the interface of wildlife
health, livestock health, and human health and livelihoods.
We convene stakeholders, help delineate conceptual frameworks
to underpin planning, management and research, and provide
technical support and resources for projects stakeholders identify
as priorities. AHEAD recognizes the need to look at health
and disease not in isolation but within a given region's socioeconomic
and environmental context.
In short, AHEAD recognizes the importance
of animal and human health to both conservation and development
interests. Around the world, domestic and wild animals are
coming into ever-more-intimate contact, and without adequate
scientific knowledge and planning, the consequences can be
detrimental on one or both sides of the proverbial fence. But
armed with the tools that the health sciences provide, conservation
and development objectives have a much greater chance of being
realized – particularly
at the critical wildlife/livestock interface, where conservation
and agricultural interests meet head-on. AHEAD efforts focus
on several themes of critical importance to the future of animal
agriculture, human health, and wildlife health (including zoonoses,
competition over grazing and water resources, disease mitigation,
local and global food security, and other potential sources
of conflict related to land-use decision-making in the face
of resource limitations). Historically, neither governments,
nongovernmental organizations, the aid community, nor academia
have holistically addressed the landscape-level nexus represented
by the triangle of wildlife health, domestic animal health,
and human health and livelihoods as underpinned by environmental
stewardship.
|
|
