ISLAMABAD: A five-day workshop was concluded here on Friday to focus on zoonotic diseases of national and international significance, spreading among humans and animals in the world.
The national one health framework and strategic plan development workshop was organised by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in response to a request from the government for technical assistance in developing a one health strategic plan to prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks in Pakistan.
The zoonotic diseases are common among humans and animals, such as rabies and brucellosis. Pakistan recently established a One Health Hub in the National Institute of Health (NIH), which will support collaboration and coordination between the human, animal, and environment health sectors on infectious zoonotic diseases.
In addition, experts discussed strategies to control rabies and brucellosis, which the government prioritised as part of the One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization and One Health Systems Mapping and Analysis Toolkit (OH-SMART) workshop held in August 2017.
The officials from the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, the Ministry of Climate Change, and the provincial, Gilgit-Baltistan, ICT and Azad Kashmir health, livestock, and environment departments also participated in the workshop.