Ibrahima Kouma

Ibrahima KOUMA is a veterinary technician and Head of the Livestock, Fish Farming and Aquaculture Post of Satama-Sokoura within the Ministry of Animal and Fisheries Resources of Côte d’Ivoire. He is also AMR Champion at ReAct Africa, Ambassador for AMRInsights, Founder of Healthcare Communications and Social Media in Côte d’Ivoire (a section of #hcsmAFRICA, founded by Vanessa Carter), Responsible for Environment and Sustainable Development from the NGO IDSCOM-CI (community health NGO). Mr Ibrahima KOUMA holds a Agricultural Technician Certificate (option: Breeding) from the School of Specialization in Breeding and Meat Professions of Bingerville, since 2010. This allowed him to do a Certificate of End of Engineering studies in Tropical and Mediterranean Agronomy in 2016. He is currently enrolled in Master 1 research for the specialty in Biology, Genomics and Biotechnology (applicable in humanitarian action) at the USIG Geneva Institute and started classes on June 13, 2022.

Mr Ibrahima is passionate about everything related to the health of humanity. He came across the phrase “ANTIBIOR RESISTANCE” on Twitter in animal sector when he was looking for information on the One Health concept. Wanting to learn about antibiotic resistance that could kill 4,150,000 people in Africa by 2050 if nothing is done. He had friesians. He was very interested until he met Vanessa Carter in December 2019 talking about her life and her fight against AMR. The latter is the one who encouraged her for a resistant committed to the service of her community, Africa and the world. This is why he wants to get involved with ReAct Africa in order to participate in the education of Africa and the search for innovative solutions. Since July 2019, he has continued to learn, train, inform and raise awareness about AMR.
Since July 2019, he has continued to learn, train, inform and raise awareness about AMR.

Currently, he is very involved in the field of animal health and veterinary public hygiene, because of his functions (advice in production and animal health, inspection of animal foodstuffs and of animal origin). It started on social networks and with breeders and traders of animals intended for human consumption. He has been with the NGO IDSCOM-CI (Initiative for the Development of Community Health Actions in Côte d’Ivoire) since January 2020 and has become its manager in charge of the environment and sustainable development, in order to reach the public health sector in disadvantaged and rural areas. This is why he enrolled at USIG Geneva to do a Masters in Biology, Genomics and Biotechnology in humanitarian action.

The challenges he faced are:
• Understanding of its message by the public: It is difficult to get a message across and still very difficult for the audience to understand and adhere to the message. On social networks, we publish to inform and raise awareness and when there are fewer reactions, it can be discouraging. Today, he is tagged under publications that participate in the spread of RAM and we want him to enlighten.
• The organization of mass awareness: Lack of financial means to organize mass awareness sessions forced him to participate in training and seminars for the benefit of breeders in order to shed light on the problem of microbial resistance, to alert dangers associated with the inappropriate use of antimicrobials, advocating good habits and animal welfare.

The lessons learned are many and we can only mention:
• Victims of AMR are numerous and their stories need to be written to educate others.
• You need a good communication strategy to get the message across and use hashes to reference that message.
• We must put scientific research to the benefit of the fight against AMR in Africa to correct its backwardness.
• Unite African and cross-sector talent for the benefit of public health.
• Be at the service of your community.
• Break down language barriers to increase the chances of eradicating AMR.
• Adopt hygiene and biosecurity measures.
• Enhance biodiversity to improve human health.

During his participation in AMR activities, he developed a taste for research in toxicology, microbiology and pharmacology. He has become a great communicator in his writings, is very involved in volunteering. It is for this reason that he enrolled at USIG Geneva for a Masters in Biology, Genomics and Biotechnology applied to humanitarian action.

The support, he needs a lot to belong to a structure that intervenes in the fight against AMR in order to organize awareness-raising and training activities for the population, livestock actors, advocacy with local authorities.
He already has great mentors, Vanessa Carter (member of AMR-STAG) and Dr Mirfin Mpundu (DG ReAct Africa). If he finds another mentor who can also guide him, motivate him, make him better, he will be very happy.

Ibrahima refuses a farewell photo even though he has one regret which is only his poor command of the English language, and this handicap will be overcome soon. He wants to belong to the AMRLEP program for life and extend it to the French-speaking area of Africa. Antibiotic resistance continues to become very broad, multisectoral and multidisciplinary. What others need to understand, that this struggle is a passion and this passion can become a livelihood if one gets more involved in saving others.
AMRLEP is more than a study program. Difficult to describe this rich, dense and digestible program. There are all sectors and disciplines. AMRLEP is priesthood. Try it and you will be satisfied.