One Health Publications

The Concept of One Health Turns Global in 2021: How it was Born

December 25, 2021

One Health News

December 25, 2021  https://impakter.com/

The minds and books behind One Health, the guiding principle adopted this year by the G7, G20 and World Health Assembly to reform public health

 

 

 

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One Health: A crucial approach to preventing and preparing for future pandemics

December 23, 2021

The Conversation

There is only ‘one health’ — the health of all living organisms in a global ecosystem that, when rapidly altered and imbalanced, puts us all at risk for future pandemics. (Canva)

 

 

 

 

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One Health Happenings News Notes

December 20, 2021

December 2021
One Health Happenings
One Health Happenings News Notes is prepared and shared monthly by the

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The FAO One Health Monitoring Tool aids local, national and regional entities to assess progress made and identify gaps.

December 16, 2021

Tanzania

FAO pilots innovative tool to support One Health operationalization in United Republic of Tanzaniac

Format

News and Press Release

The Tanzania One Health Coordination Desk, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), brought together One Health stakeholders in the United Republic of Tanzania to review the One Health Monitoring Tool (OHMT), an innovative tool that will be used to monitor One Health progress and to assess and evaluate outcomes and operational level. The OHMT aims to improve transparency and support accountability relationships as countries prepare to respond to health threats. The information gathered during this two-day workshop will be used to improve the OHMT with a view to its final review and validation.

One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants and the wider environment are closely linked and interdependent. Although there is increasing attention to One Health globally, applying One Health principles routinely remains a major challenge for the formulation of public policy, resource mobilization and sustainable implementation. It is therefore important to integrate the One Health approach into medicine, veterinary, environment, wildlife, public health, agriculture and other relevant disciplines to mitigate the burden of health threats and to implement mechanisms to evaluate and improve the operationalization of the One Health approach across sectors.

Until now, countries did not have a specific tool to assess and monitor their progress on One Health or produce accurate data on One Health operationalization at country and regional levels. With the OHMT, all countries, even those without National One Health platforms, will be able to coordinate and cooperate among sectors involved in health management to monitor One Health progress and evaluate One Health outcomes and operational level.

The Tripartite (FAO, the World Organisation for Animal Health [OIE] and the World Health Organization [WHO]) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are supporting implementation of the **One Health approach **at all levels to ensure that specialists in multiple sectors and disciplines work together to tackle threats to health and ecosystems, while addressing the collective need for clean water, energy and air and safe and nutritious food, taking action on climate change, and contributing to sustainable development.

During the opening remarks of the One Health Monitoring Tool pilot workshop, the representative of the Prime Minister’s Office, from the Disaster Management Department of the United Republic of Tanzania, Baltazary Leba, declared: “The One Health approach emphasizes the relatedness of human, animal and environmental health and the importance of transdisciplinary efforts in control and prevention of zoonotic diseases.” Representing FAO’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD), Niwael Mtui-Malamsha affirmed that “the systematic assessment of the One Health operationalization is important to reveal progress made and identify gaps to inform future One Health strategic planning.”

FAO to pilot tool in three other African countries

The One Health Monitoring tool was developed by FAO to support local, national and regional entities to assess progress and identify gaps in One Health operationalization. It is built on existing frameworks such as the World Bank’s operation framework for strengthening human, animal and environment public health systems at their interface, the One Health SMART tool developed by the University of Minnesota and the United States Department of Agriculture, and the One Health Assessment Planning for Performance (OH-APP) framework designed with funding from the** United States Agency for International Development (USAID)** under the Preparedness and Response Project. Experts from relevant stakeholders such as WHO Regional Office for Africa, OIE Africa, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union – InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources and Regional Economic Communities were also consulted during the OHMT development.

FAO, through ECTAD, in collaboration with the National One Health platforms of member countries, will also organize pilot workshops in Cameroon, Ethiopia and Liberia that will bring together One Health actors to test and review the OHMT. These preliminary country assessments of the OHMT will improve its effectiveness, as they help to gather feedback from relevant sectors and disciplines at all levels of implementation.

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SACIDS: A decade of experience developing One Health capacity in Africa

December 16, 2021

Gerald Misinzo and Mark Rweyemamu tells us about the decade of work done by the SACIDS Foundation for One Health to protect Sub-Saharan Africa from deadly infectious diseases, including COVID-19

Faced with the conundrum of a high burden of infectious disease yet a low capacity for its risk management, representatives of academic and research institutions in 5 Member States of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, resolved to form, in January 2008, the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) to address infectious diseases in the endemic settings of Africa. The Founding institutions peer-elected Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania to host the Secretariat and Headquarters of SACIDS.

 

 

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Health Threats: Can We Do Better in the Future?

December 4, 2021

“… The Need for a Geopolitical Shift in Global Health

In September 2021, this video message from the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom was recorded for “Toward a pandemic treaty”, a meeting hosted by the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, USA. He broadly delineated what was needed for a geopolitical shift in global health – including attention to One Health – preparing the ground for discussions at the upcoming World Health Assembly two months later.

This is how we got to this point – moving towards stronger global preparedness and pandemic response. …”

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Why stopping deforestation must be a priority for public health

November 27, 2021

“ … Why do public health leaders overlook the destruction of nature? We suspect there are two reasons.

First, traditional academic disciplines constrain thinking around complex issues such as infectious disease emergence. While epidemiologists increasingly embrace interdisciplinary public health approaches such as “One Health,” public announcements in support of these approaches often lack details on how to achieve desired outcomes or, when they include them, focus on what to do after a pathogen has already spilled over into humans rather than preventing spillovers in the first place.

Second, public health leaders in government often focus on short-term victories that mirror political timelines rather than long-term efforts with impacts that are more difficult to quantify. It’s harder to prove the public health benefits of protecting the Amazon rainforest over a decade than it is to build diagnostic laboratories or administer vaccines. …”

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Antimicrobial Resistance Emerges as a Slow Pandemic and the Biggest Threat to Global Health, Warn Speakers of Amrita University’s ALARM 2021 International Colloquium

November 26, 2021

Published on November 26, 2021

The youth wing of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math (AYUDH) organises bicycle rallies – with the theme, “Cycle Against AMR—Go Blue”, across the country and abroad to create awareness among the public about the need for hygiene practices, and avoidance of misuse of antibiotics to contain antimicrobial resistance.

“ … Dr. Bipin Nair, Dean, Amrita School of Biotechnology, in his welcome address emphasized the need for adopting ‘One Health’, a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach, which envisages the health of not only people but also animals, plants, and the shared environment. Delivering his keynote address, Dr. Victor Nizet, University of California, UC San Diego School of Medicine, said that antimicrobial resistance represents a complex global problem, which needs innovative and effective remedies as well as collective action through international cooperation.  …”

 

 

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The ‘One Health’ Challenge

November 26, 2021

Home > Cover Story > Connecting the Dots >The University of Hong Kong

November 2021   |   Volume 23 No. 1

 Health threats from animal and environmental sources are on the rise – not just from COVID-19, but antimicrobial resistance and other infectious diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). HKU academics have been at the forefront producing collaborative, multidisciplinary research to identify and control these threats.

 

 

 

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New FAO-OIE-UNEP-WHO platform to tackle human, animal and environmental health challenges

November 22, 2021

“… Operationalizing the One Health approach is essential to better prevent, detect and control diseases that spread between animals and humans, to tackle AMR, to reduce food safety risks, to prevent environment-related human and animal health threats, and to combat other challenges.

Implementing this approach is critical for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. …”

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World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021: An Interview with Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)

November 20, 2021

“…

It is said that to tackle AMR a ‘One Health Approach’ is needed. Can you describe what is meant by this and how it would work?

The causes and impacts of AMR are linked to human, animal, and environmental health. There are resistant microorganisms in humans, animals, food, and the environment that can move in the ecosystem. The main driver of this resistance is the use of antimicrobials in human, animal health, and food animal production. Therefore, addressing AMR requires a holistic and multi-sectoral approach – referred to as the “One Health” approach.

One Health promotes coordination and collaboration of human, animal, plant, and environmental health programs, aiming to improve prevention and response of health threats, such as AMR, that arise from the interconnection between humans, animals, and the environment.

Solutions implemented through the One Health approach gather diverse specialties to work together.     By designing and implementing multi-sectoral programs, policies, legislation, and research with individuals working in human, terrestrial and aquatic animal and plant health, in food and feed production, and environmental issues, AMR can be effectively addressed and broadly communicated to achieve better One Health outcomes.  …”

 

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