Rome, 24 November 2008 - A fresh input of US$ 350 million to the international fight against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) made the news when it was announced in Sharm El-Sheikh just over three weeks ago. Less coverage was given to endorsement of an ambitious new strategy to look at HPAI and other existing and emerging infectious diseases at the points where the animal, human and ecosystem domains meet.

The Sharm El-Sheikh meeting, the sixth in a series of high-level inter-ministerial conferences on avian and pandemic influenza, took place from 24 to 26 October and was attended by 530 participants from over 120 countries and 26 regional and international organizations.

A mix of technical and policy sessions, the conference focused on what is now known about HPAI and what has been achieved and learned since the latest wave of the disease broke out in later 2003 and subsequently spread throughout Asia and into Africa and Europe.

Delegates called for political commitment to and continued investment in strategies, approaches and activities to prevent and control HPAI. They stressed the importance of taking a long-term view of the issue, adopting a socio-economic approach and forging public-private partnerships to help combat HPAI. Communication was identified as a key component to respond to outbreaks before and once they spread.

In the almost five years that have passed since HPAI hit the scene in eastern and southeastern Asia, realisation of the need for close cooperation between the animal and public health sectors in the fight against HPAI and other existing or emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) has been growing steadily; in Sharm El-Sheikh the first concrete steps were taken to give shape to this cooperation.

Under the banner of One World, One Health, FAO, OIE, WHO and UNICEF (together with the World Bank and the UN System Influenza Coordinator (UNSIC), have agreed that a better understanding of the global emergence, spread and impact of EIDs is both urgent and important, and that because of the complexities of novel disease flare-ups, broad multidisciplinary and multisectoral cooperation across the animal-human-ecosystems interface should be put in place.

Presenting a first strategy paper on behalf of all the agencies involved, FAO explained that the thrust of the One World, One Health concept is to diminish the risk and minimize the global impact of epidemics and pandemics due to EIDs by enhancing livestock and wildlife disease intelligence, surveillance and emergency response systems at national, regional and international levels, and by supporting them through strong and stable public and animal health services and effective national communication strategies. Priorities will be identified on the basis of known areas of risk (‘hotspots’) for disease emergence and on research findings that point to new risks.

Delegates to the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting welcomed the approach as a starting point for future action and called for further elaboration of the concept and clear indications of the roles of all "stakeholders" in the process. These stakeholders range from local communities to national governments, technical regional and international organisations, and to finance and development agencies and NGOs.

Expressing enthusiasm for One World, One Health, the Canadian government offered to organise a technical meeting in Winnipeg at the beginning of 2009 to continue discussion of the issue. On this basis, the agencies involved in formulation of the One World, One Health strategy are expected to decide on the next steps. These include ways of implementing the strategy, costing options and how to ensure that stakeholder "buy-in" to the strategy is as widespread as possible.

Timely implementation will contribute significantly to the overall goal of improving public health, food safety and security, and the livelihoods of poor farming communities, as well as protecting the health of ecosystems.

FAO has started to work with its partners to further develop the One World, One Health strategy, to share it with stakeholders particularly at country and regional levels, and to develop clearly defined options for its implementation.

Click here for the strategy paper on One World, One Health.

Click here for other material presented in Sharm El-Sheikh.