Prof. Esron Karimuribo

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. Esron graduated in 1995 with a veterinary degree from Sokoine University of Agriculture and in 1998 he was awarded a Master of Veterinary Medicine (MVM) of the same university. He pursued studies in Veterinary Epidemiology at the University of Reading in UK and awarded a PhD in 2002. He 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. He led ICT and epidemiology team that designed, developed and deployed technology-assisted digital platform (AfyaMsafiri) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health at points of entries during pandemics. From 2021 he led a team 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, domestic animals and wildlife. He also led a team which designed the ‘AfyaData’ app which is recognized nationally and internationally and consequently received a Prize from the Fondation Pierre Fabre in 2019 and in 2021, it was part of 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 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.