The department of Public Health Pharmacology and Toxicology (PHPT) is one of the functional units of the University of Nairobi, under the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. At the department of PHPT we have three thematic areas for research and training: Veterinary Public Health, Pharmacology and Toxicology and Leather Science and Technology. The thematic unit of Veterinary Public Health is where we train both undergraduate and postgraduate students on food safety and hygiene, veterinary epidemiology and economics and one health concepts. We also offer consultancy services in food and water microbiology and testing for aflatoxins in food and cereals. The thematic unit of pharmacology and toxicology, is where we offer training and consultancy services on concepts of pharmacology, drug analysis for the industry, research on natural products and bioprospecting, toxicology and environmental toxicants. Under leather science and technology, we train both under graduates and postgraduates on innovations in leather sciences.
We currently have 117 active postgraduate student enrolled in all our programmes, and of these 27 are pursuing PhD programmes. Our postgraduate students are mainly from Kenya, but we also have students from other African countries including Somalia, south Sudan, Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroon, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. In addition, we have received exchange students from Japan “Yamaguchi University” and United States of America “George Mason University” including postgraduate students from Royal Veterinary College, University of London. We want to grow enrolment of international students to our innovative market oriented programmes.
At PHPT, we are interested in growing our people so that they can unleash their potential in services delivery for improved efficiency and productivity. Our researchers at PHPT have been part of research groups that have received funding together with other partner organisations to carry our research and capacity building on various topics. Some of these projects include HORN (UKRI –funded with University of Liverpool as lead); Disease surveillance and capacity strengthening of laboratory diagnostic capacity (funded by DTRA and Colorado State University as lead); MADTech-AMR (funded by SIDA), Innovate AMR (funded by IDRC); Newton fund (BBSRC and NRF-Kenya); Mitigating impact of vector-borne diseases in Northern Kenya funded by DTRA with Smithsonian institution as lead; and InfoRange project (Increasing efficiency in rangeland-based livestock value chains by co-designed digital technologies and machine learning approaches) with German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture as lead.
Based on our goal of embracing complexities in innovative research and extension services, we are keen on contributing to new product development through innovations that will create solutions for local challenges that we face as a society.
Joshua Orungo Onono (BVM, MSc, PhD)
Doctor of Public Health, Veterinary Epidemiology & Economics
Contacts- email: joshua.orungo@uonbi.ac.ke Tel: +254 705 934013