One Health and Veterinary Systems in Africa

One Health and Veterinary Systems in Africa

In honor of One Health Day, EcoHealth Alliance is pleased to launch the publication “One Health and Veterinary Systems in Africa: Taking stock of current coverage, needs, and opportunities to meet present and changing threats and optimize collaboration.”

The report celebrates the progress that African nations have made in operationalizing the One Health approach, while identifying continued needs for veterinary and broader One Health system strengthening that should be acknowledged and addressed in COVID-19 recovery investments and related financing for health security. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (“SWOT”) analysis accompanies the regional and country reports.

Specific highlights of the report include:

• Overview of current initiatives, indicators, and statistics related to One Health and veterinary systems at continental and global level;
• Regional reports for North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa;
• Country reports for 11 focal nations selected to capture geographic and environmental variation important for ground-truthing;
• Disease and topical case studies examining implementation gaps and challenges at a finer scale, at continental and country levels;
• Data dashboards for all 54 countries in the African continent, benchmarking indicators across national, regional, and continental averages;
• Key conclusions that synthesize findings on themes including One Health coordination, workforce and training, surveillance and monitoring of disease risks, laboratory systems, disease prevention and control, vulnerabilities, and financial resources.

The report is timely in highlighting common themes among countries in the context of both  emerging infectious diseases and the ongoing risk and burden of endemic diseases, providing actionable and precise entry points for next steps. Its findings and overall approach provide a practical starting point for identifying systems-level coverage and needs – including chronic gaps not sufficiently attended to current investments – to address threats to humans, animals and the environment in line with a One Health approach. It can be replicated for other countries and regions, in particular to guide implementation of the global One Health Joint Plan of Action and related investment priorities. Relevant sections can be extracted as useful to promote national, regional, and continental dialogue.

The report is authored by a team from EcoHealth Alliance, the University of Ghana, and expert consultants from eleven focal countries. This work was made possible through the support of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) Center for Global Health Engagement.

For any questions, please contact machalaba@ecohealthalliance.org.

Please click here to download the English language version.

Please click here/Veuillez cliquer ici pour télécharger la version française.

About EcoHealth Alliance:

EcoHealth Alliance is an international environmental health nonprofit dedicated to protecting wildlife and the public from emerging infectious diseases. We work with governments, scientists, and policymakers around the world to make critical changes for pandemic prediction and prevention. Our dedicated scientists conduct field research and develop tools to safeguard the health of the planet, people, and wildlife.

Press Contact: Majelia Ampadu, ampadu@ecohealthalliance.org