One Health awareness month

At STAR IDAZ IRC, our One Health Working Group has been busy working on how to improve and better utilise existing funding mechanisms for research that embeds a One Health approach. The One Health Working Group members include expertise across human health, animal health, plant health, health of the environment and social sciences.

Since 2022, the group has conducted a survey and held two meetings, producing a Mapping One Health report, which was published in summer 2024. The report explores the current One Health research funding landscape, its challenges, and makes draft recommendations for funders to better align their funding strategies with the priorities and requirements of the One Health research community. The report was presented by Maddy Newman (member of the STAR IDAZ Secretariat and Project Manager) at the World One Health Congress in Cape Town in September 2024.

As a next step, STAR-IDAZ IRC is planning to hold an in-person One Health funding workshop in Nairobi, Kenya in March, bringing together a group of One Health researchers and One Health funders, programme owners, resource partners and others with an interest in potentially funding One Health. The aim is for these different stakeholders to discuss and refine the draft recommendations from the above report, co-developing feasible and practical suggestions to improve funding mechanisms for One Health. Although the One Health Working Group is mainly focused on research that utilises One Health approaches, the network recognises the importance of moving beyond research to implementation. The workshop will therefore consider funding for One Health in a broader context.

Since One Health is a cross-cutting issue, other STAR IDAZ IRC working groups are also incorporating One Health approaches where possible. The network supports all 4 Cs of One Health: Communication, Collaboration, Coordination and Capacity-building, with a focus on the coordination of livestock and aquatic animal research funding at the global level.

As the network coordinates animal health research funding internationally, it also aims to align with other global initiatives such as the Quadripartite One Health Joint Plan of Action (OH JPA), Implementing the OH JPA at National level, work by the World Bank Putting Pandemics Behind Us: Investing in One Health to reduce risks of emerging infectious diseases, the Pandemic Fund and a Quadripartite One Health priority research agenda for antimicrobial resistance.

With ongoing outbreaks of high-pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) virus A (H5N1) in dairy cattle in the United States, and in poultry across the globe, the need for One Health approaches to tackle these challenges is essential. The recent report of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Germany also highlights the need for further research and funding into transboundary animal diseases. STAR IDAZ IRC has developed both disease-specific resources such as the development of control strategies for FMD roadmap, as well as reports on cross-cutting issues such as research roadmaps for the development for alternatives to antibiotics.