Category: Front Page News

ISDS One Health Surveillance (OHS) – Case Study Awards

The International Society for Disease Surveillance is seeking submissions of One Health Surveillance Case Studies to identify and highlight examples of how professionals have implemented a One Health Surveillance approach that integrates animal, human, and environmental surveillance to address a public health threat.

Deadline for submissions is the 18th of September.

Three awardees will receive travel and registration to the 2015 ISDS Conference in December 2015!

Details and application link can be found on this Flyer and at  http://www.syndromic.org/component/content/article/11-programming/983-isds-one-health-surveillance-case-study-awards

The concept of planetary health has been defined by The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health report, as “….the achievement of the highest attainable standard of health, wellbeing, and equity worldwide through judicious attention to the human systems-political, economic, and social-that shape the future of humanity and the Earth’s natural systems that define the safe environmental limits within which humanity can flourish.”

The concept is based on the findings of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, nine planetary boundaries, which propose that we are in the “anthropocene era” where human activities are having substantial global effects on the Earth’s systems.

More about the planetary health concept can be read here at the lancet website.

Drivers for occasional spillover event of Ebola virus

A EFSA report shows that “understanding the drivers of Ebola virus spillover in West Africa requires a broad, multi-disciplinary perspective”. Experts identified the drivers through a literature review, grouped them according to social, technological, environmental, economic, and political categories and identified and visualised links. Their analysis is a nice example of the application of a One Health approach to understanding disease emergence.

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4161

Link to report: http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/intersectoral_collaboration_to_defeat_zoonoses/en/

A new WHO report urges the global community to accelerate action against neglected zoonotic diseases as most of them can be controlled through existing knowledge and tools.

‘The Control of Neglected Zoonotic Diseases: from advocacy to action’ report highlights the potential for intersectoral collaboration and discusses opportunities for innovative funding mechanisms.

“We have existing knowledge and evidence that can be transformed into strategies and applied on a large-scale,” said Dr Dirk Engels, Director, Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, WHO. “We need to be able to capitalize on experience and the growing political commitment to involve other sectors, with community participation, to speed up the elimination agenda.”

Chapter 2 of the report focuses on The value of intersectoral working – One Health and includes case studies and audience opinion on the question:  “Which ‘building block’ do you feel is the most important for the promotion of cross-sectoral collaboration in your region?”

Download the report from the WHO website: http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/intersectoral_collaboration_to_defeat_zoonoses/en/