The UK and Indonesia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on health cooperation and its Joint Action Plan. The two countries have also signed a Grant Agreement for the Fleming Fund partnership on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance in Indonesia.
Fellowship Snapshots: Nepal & Indonesia
Fellows from around the world discuss what it's like to work in their context, the inspiration behind their careers and what they've learned or hope to learn throughout their fellowship.
Tulsi Ram Gompo, Nepal
I’m an Animal Health Fellow in Nepal at the Central Veterinary Laboratory. I grew up on a farm with some cattle and goats and my father was a small veterinary technician. He was my inspiration to begin veterinary studies. I studied in various colleges, including in the US and after I finished I began working in the lab.
In Nepal, we are seeing a lot of resistance to E. coli. Although legally it’s not allowed to use antibiotics in animal feed, many farmers put antibiotics within water – meaning animals are receiving large quantities of antibiotics as a prophylaxis. It’s very difficult to monitor this, but we are seeing resistance increasing as a result of overuse.
So far, my colleagues and I have been completing most of our Fellowship training online, as we started the programme in March, just when lockdown began! I’m looking forward to next month where we are expecting to go to the field and collect some samples.
Imron Suandy, Indonesia
I’m an Animal Health Fellow in Indonesia at the Directorate of Veterinary Public Health. I got into veterinary medicine by accident, but through my studies including in Chaing Mai and Berlin, it has become a passion of mine.
In Indonesia, AMR awareness has started to improve within the livestock and veterinary sectors, but there is still a long way to go. Economic drivers from the livestock industry, low enforcement of antibiotic use practices (such using antibiotics as prophylaxis) all contribute to misuse.
I’m most interested to learn how to apply One Health in practice. I see One Health as a framework or a concept, but I’m not sure how to implement it. I’m fascinated by what we can achieve by integrating human, animal and aquaculture data to inform national policy.
I also hope I can improve my leadership and communication skills. We need to communicate clear messages and understand gaps within our national AMR response, rather than blaming other sectors. We also need to translate health issues into economic issues and demonstrate to the private sector that there can be economic incentives to reducing antibiotic use. I hope we learn a formula for how to communicate this. Even so, if we can learn from the experience of climate change, we know it’s a long road ahead of us!
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Knowledge Notes
From Knowledge Notes, What does Value for Money at a country level look like? , Date: 28/07/2021
Our independent evaluator, [Itad](https://www.itad.com/project/fleming-fund-independent-evaluation-supplier/), is evaluating whether the Fleming Fund investments at the country level offer Value for Money (VFM), as one of six evaluation questions. To inform their approach, Itad reviewed some common practices used to assess and achieve VFM in grant management and fellowship programmes.