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ANNOUNCEMENTS 2011 WINGS WorldQuest Women of Discovery AwardsDr. Gladys will be receiving the 2011 Women of Discovery Humanitarian Award from Wings World Quest in New York!
Established in 2003, the WINGS WorldQuest Women of Discovery Awards recognize outstanding women who are making significant contributions to world knowledge through exploration. The awards include a research grant, travel to New York, and opportunities to present field research to the press and greater public. Awards are given annually in the following categories: Air & Space, Earth, Sea, Humanity, Courage, Field Research, and Lifetime Achievement. To date, 48 pioneering women have received the WINGS Women of Discovery Award.
Friday, April 15, 2011, 6:00 - 10:30 p.m.
Watch Gladys Whitley Gold Award Video Interview...
Calling all New Yorkers Dr. Gladys will be speaking at the UN Millenium Development Goals program on September 21st from 3:30-5:30pm to coincide with the United Nations MDG Summit and the Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Meeting. Special guest speakers will highlight connections among population, gender, reproductive health, and environmental sustainability/climate change issues, and demonstrate the benefits of integrated approaches to achieving the MDGs, particularly MDG 5 (improve maternal health) and MDG 7 (ensure environmental sustainability). The event will be held at The Church Center for the United Nations, 777 United Nations Plaza, 10th Floor (directly across from the UN). read more
Dr. Gladys on the Rolex Awards Jury
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka has won acclaim for her pioneering programme linking public health with the conservation of an endangered species, the charismatic gorilla that shares over 98 per cent of its DNA with humans. "Helping the gorillas is about helping the people. It has to go hand in hand," says the 39-year-old veterinary surgeon.
Meet the Jury: Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka“We are moving towards a phase where disciplines will not be so parallel; we will be working in a multidisciplinary manner to get things done.”video interview
Uganda: Out of the Wild
Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) and it's founder Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka will be featured in a story from the wilds of Uganda's "Impenetrable Forest" – home to the world's largest population of Mountain Gorillas, but also a hotbed for a number of deadly diseases that cross the species barrier from animals to humans. Here, a new idea in public health called "One Health" is emerging to help combat threats like Ebola, Marburg virus, and TB. Says wildlife veterinarian William Karesh: "What we learned over the years is that all the same diseases that we were dealing with in the wildlife were the same as what we were dealing with in people living in the surrounding areas, or in their animals. So when we say that there’s human health or livestock health or wildlife health, we just made that up. There’s only one health.
PBS. Frontline World.
Events Dr. Gladys at the Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress 2010Dr. Gladys is honored to be a part of the Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress 2010 held in Melbourne, Australia April 11-16. The United Nations has declared 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity, making it a particularly appropriate year in which to stage the Congress. The Congress principle regarding the importance of a healthy environment to achieve healthy communities is a symbiotic dependency. This international focus on biodiversity in nature in 2010 will further enhance the significance of this relationship.read more
Wildlife Conservation Expo Day October 3rd 2009
Enjoy presentations from an assemblage of world-class wildlife conservationists who are living and working with indigenous communities to protect endangered wildlife and wild places. Join Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka and other conservation entrepreneurs including, keynote speaker Dr. Jane Goodall at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo.
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While working as a veterinarian for the Uganda Wildlife Authority in 1996, I led a team that managed the first scabies skin disease outbreak in mountain gorillas. An infant, Ruhara, had the most severe case in the group losing over 75% of his hair, becoming extremely thin, constantly crying, and was even too weak to hold onto his mother. After his death, a fresh post-mortem and laboratory diagnosis confirmed that Ruhara died of scabies.
We started to ask ourselves, “Where could the scabies could have come from?” Research demonstrated that one of the most common skin diseases in low-income groups of people in Uganda is scabies. Why? Because it is a disease of poor hygiene and crowded conditions. The puzzle was coming together: this particular gorilla group periodically foraged in communities gardens to raid their banana crops; add that to the fact that many of these communities living near protected parks are the most isolated and impoverished communities in Africa, with 200 to 300 people per square kilometer and limited access to the most basic healthcare, and you have the perfect breeding ground for scabies mites. We had our answer: humans were the host of the scabies mite for this gorilla family. It was clear that in these fragile areas where wildlife, people and livestock intersect, a decline in any of them affects the survival of the others: today this message is the backbone of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH).
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Plot 51 Kanjokya Street, P. O. Box 10950, Kampala, Uganda | info@ctph.org | T: +256.414.531.389 | F: +256.41.342.298 Copyright © 2009 Conservation Through Public Health. All Rights Reserved.
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It's a lush green tropical forest in southwest Uganda, home to about half of the world's estimated 700 mountain gorillas. But what makes Bwindi so special is not only these critically endangered, magnificent, and charismatic cousins with whom humans have in common 98.4 percent of their genetic material, but also the special charm and hospitality of the people who share this fragile World Heritage site with the planet's gentle giants – and whose livelihood is increasingly dependent on gorilla ecotourism.
