One Health
09/07/20
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Following the IHR-PVS Pathway National Bridging Workshop in Serbia in 2019 and aiming at the fulfillment of its recommendations, a workshop to present the WHO/OIE/FAO methodology and discuss the ways of developing the National Protocol on joint field investigation and response to priority zoonotic diseases outbreaks was held by WHO and OIE country and regional representatives for Europe together with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of Republic of Serbia.
The workshop gathered more than 30 senior representatives from the public health, veterinary, and food safety authorities, as well as leading academia experts. While practicing all recommendations of WHO and public health authorities for meetings during the Covid-19 pandemic, participants presented a high level of advancement in the coordination of activities on different national levels, when faced zoonotic threats.
All speakers highlighted their organizations’ commitments to support the One Health approach as one of the key priorities in national activities on all levels.
Dr Jelena Jankovic, – Assistant Minister of Health of Serbia, in her welcome speech, stressed that the development of a joint national Protocol to respond to priority zoonotic disease outbreaks is a step forward to strengthen the national contingency plan and announced the establishment of a multisectoral working group to devise the Protocol.
Dr Budimir Plavsic, OIE Regional Representative for Europe, shared the information about the One Health Coordination Mechanism established recently between WHO, FAO, and OIE and underlined that the workshop in Belgrade was an excellent example of the joint One Health action on a national level with multiple stakeholders’ coordination.
Dr Boban Đurić, representative of the Veterinary Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management, marked the necessity to strengthen cooperation across sectors to address health threats in the animal-human-environment interface, including cooperation between human and animal surveillance systems in Serbia.
Dr Miljan Rancic and Dr Ivan Zivanov from the WHO country office together with national leading experts discussed an extensive country experience and gaps to be bridged.
The WHO and OIE teams demonstrated various approaches based on joint frameworks, tools, and guidance materials to strengthen capacities at the national, regional, and global levels and best practices from countries across the WHO and OIE Regional representations. Dr Peter Hoejskov (WHO EURO), Dr Marina Sokolova (OIE RR Europe), Dr Lisa Scheuermann (WHO HQ) introduced the Tripartite Zoonosis Guide methodology, different approaches to composing priority zoonoses lists, and establishing coordination structure for zoonotic diseases outbreak response.
