Prof Esron Karimuribo
BVM, MVM, PhD
SACIDS Foundation for One Health,
Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro
Esron Karimuribo is a veterinarian and Professor of Veterinary One Health Epidemiology at Sokoine University of Agriculture. Currently he leads the Digital and Data Sciences programme at SACIDS Foundation for One Health and is also a Director for Research and Postgraduate Studies at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). He has long standing national, regional and international experience in research project leadership and management. He has championed health systems strengthening within and outside Tanzania.
Esron has led a team of SACIDS ICT specialists and epidemiologists that, since 2017 have developed a One Health digital programme for disease surveillance in humans and animals. This has been the cornerstone for national human health disease surveillance in Mozambique since the COVID-19 pandemic. In Tanzania, SACIDS scientists are collaborating with FAO in a joint promotion of the FAO EMA-I and SACIDS AfyaData systems for a unique international animal health surveillance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Esron led ICT and epidemiology team to design, develop and deploy technology-assisted digital platform (AfyaMsafiri) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health at points of entries during pandemics.
From 2021 he leads a team of epidemiologists and IT programmers that developed and strengthened early warning One Health system in Tanzania under coordination of the One Health section of the Prime Minister’s Office in collaboration with sectoral Ministries. Through this project a digital platform for sharing information between ministries responsible for human health (Ministry of Health), domestic and wild animals (Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries), Environment (Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Vice President’s Office) and Food security (Ministry of Agriculture) in Tanzania has been launched. The Digital and Data Science programme and the Genomics and Metagenomics programme have collaborated in developing the SACIDS strategy for the development of capacity for enhanced disease surveillance at “source” i.e., geographically at sub-national level even to village level and zoologically in animals, including wildlife.
In 2018, he led a team that promoted establishment of Event-based Surveillance (EBS) systems and practices at cross-border sites in East African Community (EAC) under One Health approach. The ‘AfyaData’ team has been recognized nationally and internationally and consequently received a Prize from the Fondation Pierre Fabre in 2019 and in 2021, it was part of the the Bill Gate’s ‘Heroes in the Field’ documentary promoting amazing innovations and contribution of frontline teams in fighting disease epidemics globally. In 2019, he was part of the Salzburg Global Seminar international team that developed One Health Disease outbreak timeliness metrics framework to support evaluation and analysis of disease outbreak timeliness metrics. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a Focal Person and a member of the External Advisory Group member of the One Health Intelligence scoping study under the global quadripartite partnership of FAO-WOAH-WHO-UNEP.
Esron was the first postdoctoral research fellow appointed by the SACIDS Foundation for One Health at SUA in 2009 to work on Infectious disease preparedness analysis and resource mapping across human and animal health sector in southern Africa. He is also an awardee of the Rothamsted International African Research Fellowship and worked at the Moredun Research Institute, UK in 2007 focusing on Molecular Epidemiology
Esron has published 130 scientific articles (Citations-3,999; h-index-37, i10-index-86 based on Google Scholar statistics as at 7th August, 2023). He is a member of different professional associations and communities within and outside Tanzania. Currently he serves as a Chairman of the Tanzania Veterinary Association since 2020. He is also an Associate Editor of the CABI One Health Journal since 2022.
