TRYPANOSOMOSIS ONCHOCERCIASIS ZOONOSIS ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT (TOZARD) is an apolitical, gender sensitive, purpose-driven, non-religious, non-governmental and non-profit making organization based in Bambili - about ten kilometers from Bamenda in Cameroon. Our passion for using available science knowledge to empower and help people suffering from and/or exposed to the risk of the targeted diseases: Trypanosomosis, Onchocerciasis and Zoonoses (TOZ), and who live mainly in rural areas, remains our key strength that we exploit. TOZARD has a cream of well-trained, experienced and highly motivated scientists with a passion for controlling TOZ diseases and who seek to build an interdisciplinary research platform using the One Health Concept to foster international partnerships for collaborative and outward-facing research programmes. To realize our goals, we operate a biological science research laboratory which is used to generate innovative solutions which when co-opted with existing knowledge on these diseases, is disseminated during our reach-out programs in the targeted communities. We also have an annex centre of our research laboratory in Ngaoundere, Cameroon.  Scientific knowledge generated at TOZARD is not based on the opinions, feelings, or intuition of the scientist, but on the accumulation of empirical evidence.

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Rationale of TOZARD

 

There are many villages in Cameroon and many other African countries that have never seen a vehicle drive into for deliveries or transporting people. They are remote and harbor the vectors of many diseases including Zoonoses. Humans and many animal species share the same bed rooms and food dishes. Fatal accidents frequently occur following conflict in the occupation of space between man and some of the dangerous animal species. Movement of goods and people is then done on foot involving days of trekking long distances and crossing many rivers which are yet to have a safe bridge since independence. Illiteracy is high, portable water is still a luxury, electricity and communication gadgets are absent.  In the mounting poor hygienic conditions and poor environmental health, the vectors of disease abound and the burden of parasitic infections is very high.   Sick people die before they reach the nearest rudimentary health care unit. In such villages nutrition is sub-optimal and life expectancy is usually less than fifty years.

 

Government staff sent to work in schools, health care units and other institutions in such communities, never stay to work and when they do stay, it will be for very short periods. One TOZARD member visited a school in a village near the Nigerian border and found that the lone teacher, in the class one to four school, had closed down the school for the year in the second week of April and left for his far off city in another region.

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Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of TOZARD

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The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of TOZARD is made up of scientifically renowned professors who like the ordinary members, have a passion for empowering the rural communities on disease burden reduction strategies. SAB members are the three most elderly and most scientifically renowned members of the association. Their role is that of providing the association with technical advice. They also serve as reviewers for research protocols to be undertaken in TOZARD.  PD. Dr Alfons Renz (Tel +49 707 170 100) of the Department of Comparative Zoology, Institute of Evolution and Ecology, University of Tübingen,  72076, Germany, was the first member of SAB to be endorsed by TOZARD executive board on the 23/08/2016.  Prof. Kelm Soerge, Former Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Biohemistry in the University of Bremen, Germany (Tel +49 421 218 63222) was elected on 10/08/2023 as the second member of SAB. As TOZARD grows, the other members of SAB will be identified.