Dr Julius D. Keyyu,
Director Research and Development,
Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI)
Dr. Julius D. Keyyu is the Director of Research Development and Coordination at the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), a Government Institute with the mandate to conduct, coordinate and supervise wildlife research in Tanzania. He has a background in Veterinary Science and a PhD from the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). Dr. Keyyu has 25 years of research experience on ecosystem and population health especially wildlife disease ecology. His research work has mainly been on disease ecology at the at the human-livestock-wildlife interface using a One health approach on viral, bacterial, parasitic and zoonotic diseases. Dr. Keyyu has worked on a number of infectious diseases including Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Peste de Petit Ruminants (PPR), African Swine Fever, and Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF); as well as zoonotic diseases including rabies, brucellosis, anthrax, Rift Valley Fever (RVF), leptospirosis, and Q-fever. For the SACIDS Foundation for One Health (SACIDS), he has been the prime advisor and collaborating research expert that guides SACIDS activities in wildlife research whether it is for specific diseases or epidemiological systems, including disease surveillance.
Julius is the Deputy Leader for the SACIDS Digital and Data Science Research and Expertise Provision Programme. TAWIRI is a partner in the SACIDS collaboration with the Tanzania National One Health Platform in the Prime Minister’s Office. Specifically, TAWIRI provides disease associated as well as environmental data into the National Dashboard, Tracking and Early Warning for infectious and disease management. TAWIRI has been in some discussion with SACIDS regarding the need to improve the quality and quantity of such data that feeds into the National by adopting the AfyaData platform developed by SACIDS. Dr. Keyyu is a member of 23 National, Regional and International Professional Bodies as well as Technical and Steering Committees. Dr. Keyyu is also the focal person for the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) in Tanzania and the focal person for the One health platform in Tanzania. The scientific expertise of Dr. Keyyu has transformed community livelihoods through outreach and technology transfer, and has contributed to scientific knowledge through 81 papers in peer reviewed journals with three papers in the journal of Science, 55 papers in Conference proceedings, 3 registered patents, 3 book chapters, 15 consultancy services/ special assignments and 29 research grants. Most of the publications can be accessed with PubMed (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) and other citation indexes.
