Centre for Viral Zoonoses participates in International One Health Day

Posted on November 20, 2020

The fifth annual International One Health Day took place on 3 November 2020 https://onehealthplatform.com/onehealthday. The global campaign brings attention to the need for a One Health approach to solving the shared health threats at the human-animal-environment interface. “The One Health approach” refers to transdisciplinary action between human, animal, as well as environmental and social scientists to prevent, detect and respond to zoonotic diseases and other issues that affect our health. This initiative is a collaboration between the One Health Commission, the One Health Initiative and the One Health Platform Foundation. Numerous One Health activities are organised this November around the globe to raise awareness amongst all sectors of human, animal and environmental health. One Health also launched an international student competition to encourage students from medical, veterinary and scientific backgrounds, to organise their own One Health initiatives to raise awareness in the community and amongst professionals alike. 

Prof Marietjie Venter of the Zoonotic Arbo and Respiratory Virus program (ZARV), Centre for Viral Zoonoses (CVZ), Department Medical Virology, University of Pretoria is the regional spokesperson for Africa for International One Health Day (https://onehealthplatform.com/one/contact/regional-points-of-contact) and member of the One Health Platform Scientific board. She encourages students to enter their One Health activities on the international website to come into consideration for the $2000 prize. https://onehealthplatform.com/one/student-competition/overview. Anyone can however register a One Health activity on the website to showcase the global One Health solidarity during November. https://onehealthplatform.com/onehealthday

Prof Marietjie Venter, Head of the Zoonotic Arbo and Respiratory virus Program at the Centre for Viral Zoonoses shared that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s perspective on the importance of One Health in pandemic preparedness and the risk of zoonotic diseases. “Although the pandemic has changed our way of doing things this year and interrupted international travel and many direct contact activities, scientists have become more connected through online engagements,” she said. The month kicked off with the sixth World One Health Congress https://worldonehealthcongress.org/ that took place online from 31 October -3 November and brought together some of the leading One Health Scientist from around the world—therefore allowing many more students and participants to attend and participate in the meeting. The One Health Platform hosted the meeting in partnership with the University of EdinburghThe African CDC, and the SACIDS (Southern African Centres for infectious diseases) Foundation for One health ensuring significant representation from African Scientist in One Health. The University of Pretoria was well represented with Prof MarietjieVenter being on the scientific committee and co-chairing the Session on Surveillance in humans animals and Plants with Dr Mark Rweyemamu, the executive director of SACIDS. Several students from the University of Pretoria had poster presentations. Sessions on COVID 19 drew robust engagement from some of the leading scientists on zoonoses, vaccines and therapeutics. One Health sessions, Antimicrobial resistance and Science Policy ensured a highly dynamic and topical conference that included academics, researchers, policymakers and industry. 

One Health activities can be tracked on https://onehealthplatform.com/onehealthday as several activities continue for the rest of November throughout Africa, including the University of Pretoria. Student groups registered two initiatives at University of Pretoria including a community outreach as well as the first One Health Jerusalema challenge that was driven by the Zoonotic Arbo and Respiratory virus program in the CVZ and included members of the faculties of health and veterinary science. 

Two International consortium meetings will take place on the 24th and 25th of November 2020 and involved The ZARV group. On the 24th, the African Network for improved epidemiology and diagnostics of common and emerging infections (ANDEMIA), which includes scientist of South Africa represented by UP and NICD; Germany (the Robert Koch Institute), the Ivory Coast, the DRC and Burkina Faso, will be discussing their progress. The network uses syndromic surveillance to define the causes of fevers of unknown origin, respiratory and enteric diseases in Africa, including zoonotic diseases and COVID19. On 25 November the Leap Agri- LEARN consortium, a long term European/Africa collaboration on neglected arboviruses will host a training workshop on the development of serological and molecular assays for arbovirus surveillance in animals with students from the Netherlands (Wageningen University and Research); Germany (Friedrich Loeffler Institut); Cameroon (University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon) and the ZARV at the University of Pretoria. 

These international networks and capacity building across disciplines strengthen the One Health capacity in South Africa and link stakeholders globally to enhance pandemic preparedness. 

- Author Prof Marietjie Venter

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