We Collectively Have Only One Health

Might it be that the time and opportunity for realizing Virchow’s vision of One Medicine and One Health has finally come? Or will these efforts once again dissipate similar to the many attempts that have come before?

To address these questions, experts recently made a focused and granular effort to analyze the impact and usefulness of coordinated infectious disease surveillance and control operations across humans, animals, and the environment, and the sustainability of such approaches. 

Multidisciplinary experts met for three days in early October in Annecy, France to debate, shape, and seek consensus on principles and potential roadmaps for the implementation of One Health disease surveillance and control in various settings. 

The underlying premise of the gathering was that there is a need to identify suitable strategies to establish coordinated infectious disease surveillance and control programs based on principles that incorporate deeper understandings of the underlying systems and value propositions (alignments of incentives and disincentives) in a manner that will ensure resilience and long-term sustainability.

The results of this intensive workshop will be forthcoming and worth watching for. 

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to enable sustained impact and coordinated One Health-focused investments in disease surveillance and control, it is necessary to understand and align the interests of those who benefit with those who pay in an equitable and transparent manner.  

This understanding is key to systemically ‘incentivizing’ the sustained actions required for effective and efficient implementation of One Health disease surveillance and control programs.