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The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) of the WHO developed the “eco-bio-social” concept, combining ecological, biological, and social perspectives “to better understand transmission dynamics of vector-borne infectious diseases and to define community-based integrated management interventions,” said Dr Johannes Sommerfeld. 

 

TDR and IDRC have been collaborating in the field of ecohealth since 2003, and this partnership continues to thrive. The organizations worked together to deliver a workshop at the International EcoHealth Forum (IEF 2008) called Ecohealth Approaches to the Prevention and Control of Vector-Borne Diseases in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. The workshop “provided an excellent opportunity to present and validate [TDR’s] analytical framework [to tackle various infectious diseases],” Dr Sommerfeld said. TDR and IDRC are now embarking on a major initiative focusing on dengue and Chagas disease in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

In future, TDR will maintain its partnership with IDRC “on ecohealth-related research focused on the prevention and control of infectious diseases of poverty,” Dr Sommerfeld said. Furthermore, TDR will “foster the application of such research in public health.”

 

IEF 2008 was stimulating not only for ecohealth research but also for individual researchers. Dr Sommerfeld attended the first ecohealth forum in Montreal in 2003, and noted “the community has become larger over the years.”

 

IEF 2008 was “a very lively event, which showed the dynamic nature of the community of ecohealth practice,” Dr Sommerfeld said. The Forum allowed him to “gain . . . knowledge, learn arguments and make contacts” that will help to generate support for the ecohealth approach.

 

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