30 July 2021, Freetown. –  The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the World Animal Health Organisation and One Health Platform in Sierra Leone supported the establishment and strengthening of the Joint Risk Assessment (JRA) throught a five-day workshop which started on 26 August, attended by 30 participants drawn from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS), the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and Universities representing animal health, public health, environment (including wildlife), food safety, and academia. In addition, partners including the Tripartite collaboration between FAO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National One Health Platform also collaborated in the facilitation of this workshop.

In May 2019, regional epidemiologists, and other technical level representatives from WHO, OIE and FAO headquarters, regional, and country level offices came together to be trained on the use of the Joint Risk Assessment (JRA) Operational Tool in a regional training and on how to run pilot workshops throughout the region.

As a follow up of this regional JRA training, FAO-ECTAD Sierra Leone has held this training to enable the participants to master and utilize the 10-step JRA process for priority zoonotic diseases in Sierra Leone (rabies and Lassa fever) and to create a system for conducting JRAs in the future. In addition, the workshop enabled participants to identify targeted risk communication and management options to be implemented at the human-animal-environmental interface for the selected zoonotic disease hazards.

Bringing sectors together to assess risks from zoonotic disease threats

Zoonotic diseases are transmitted between animals and humans and account for more than three-quarters of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. These infectious diseases often pose a threat to public health and challenge the animal health and environmental sectors. It is therefore necessary to identify, at the national level, the information and expertise of all relevant sectors when assessing health risks resulting from zoonoses in order to better understand and manage risks at the human-animal-environment interface.

Currently, practical joint approaches, operational tools, and processes to support national multisectoral collaboration for zoonoses have outlined the need for collaboration among these institutions and other stakeholders in order to operationalize One Health approaches at the interface human-animal-environment. In this context, the Tripartite collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to address health risks at the human–animal–environment interface, including developing global strategies and standard tools to ensure a consistent, harmonised approach throughout the world, include operational tools for conducting joint risk assessment (JRA).

Joint Risk Assessment recommendations

This workshop provided recommendations that will enable decision-makers to develop and implement risk management measures, as well as disseminate science-based communication messages that are harmonized across sectors or even put in place together. Some of these recommendations were: to conduct a comprehensive and field- based JRA to generate appropriate information to inform decision makers on proper management of rabies and Lassa fever as well as to urgently revise the list of priority zoonotic diseases (PZD) and conduct JRA for each of the PZD identified. Participants also recommended that the National One Health Platform should extend JRA to threats related to environmental hazards and highlighted the need to integrate additional stakeholders (from the laboratory and communication sectors) in future JRA carried out in Sierra Leone.