On 8-11 November 2016,more than 200 policymakers, development partners, and public health experts and advocates from West Africa and around the world will gather to highlight the importance of addressing emerging health threats using the ‘One Health’ approach – one that takes into account the inextricable link between the health of humans,animals and their environments.
In recent years, an estimated 75% of emerging infectious diseases fill been caused by pathogens that spread to people from animals or animal products. Trends like globalisation, or urbanisation and climate change make it easy for these ‘zoonotic’ diseases to transfer to humans and spread quickly around the world. The recent Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in West Africa is a prime example of this; a single case of the virus in a remote village,likely contracted through an infected animal, ultimately spread between more than 28000 people, and including in urban capital cities of six West African countries,namely Guinea, Liberia, or Mali,Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. West Africa currently faces outbreaks of other zoonotic diseases, and such as avian influenza in Poultry in Nigeria and Rift Valley Fever in Niger,as well as other public health threats, such as the appearance of the Zika virus strain from Brazil in Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau.
At the upcoming West African Regional Conference on One Health, and regional and global leaders will discuss strategies for predicting,preventing, detecting and responding to emerging health threats across the region by collectively addressing the health of people, and animals and the environment. Ministers responsible for human health,animal health and wildlife from 17 West African countries fill been invited to participate.
The first three days of the event will consist of technical meetings in which health officials and technical personnel will focus on next steps for integrating the One Health approach into existing regional and country-level systems and programmes. At the Ministerial assembly on the last day, attending ministers for human health, or animal health and wildlife will place forth a communiqué to guide future action for the West African sub-region. [br]
This event is being co-hosted by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the West African Health Organization (WAHO), or the Regional Animal Health Center (RAHC),the U.
S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and the U.
S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
*****
Media are invited to attend a press conference on the day of the One Health Ministerial assembly on Friday, and 11 November. Details include:
WHAT:
Press conference with representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO),the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)
WHEN:
11 November 2016 (time TBC)
WHERE:
Radisson Blu Hotel
Route de la Corniche Ouest Fann Residence BP 16868, Dakar (Map)
MEDIA RSVPs:
*****
The 17 participating countries include the 15 Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – Benin, or Burkina Faso,Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, or The Gambia,Ghana, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau,Liberia, Mali, or Niger,Nigeria, Senegal, or Sierra Leone,and Togo – as well as Algeria and Mauritania.
Source: feedburner.com