National workshop on Zoonoses and One Health

A national level workshop of One Health Asia Program (OHAP) on Zoonoses and One Healthwas organized in chairmanship of Mr. Jagadish Bhakta Shrestha, Director General of the Department of Environment along with the chief guest Mr. Shyam Kishore Sah, Officiating Secretary of Ministry of Agriculture Development (MOAD) and special guests Dr. Keshav Premi, Director General of the Department of Livestock Services and Mr. Fanindra Kharel, Director General of the Department of National Park and Wild Life Conservation on December 18, 2015 at Hotel Himalaya, Kathmandu with the following agendas:

  1. Sharing of workshop objectives, project background and progress update
  2. Exploring the KAP status on zoonoses and infrastructures and facilities of Veterinary and Public Health entities in the project districts
  3. Presentation on existing policies, act, regulations on zoonoses and one health, and recommendations for improvement
  4. Discussion on ways forward

The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Sah by lightening the ‘Panus’. Dr. Bhishma P. Subedi, Executive D of ANSAB welcomed the participants and briefed general overview of ANSAB and objectives of the workshop.

During the technical session, Dr. Resham Acharya presented the brief highlights on One Health program. Dr. Krishna P. Sankhi, National Zoonoses Coordinato – One Health Asia Program, briefly shared the progress and achievements of OHAP – Fighting zoonoses in Nepal – Increasing awareness, prevention and control of zoonoses. Dr. Neel Prakash Singh (NPS) Karki, former DG-Department of Livestock Services presented the infrastructures and facilities including ‘cold chain management’ of Veterinary and Public Health entities in the project districts and informed the situation that the cold chain system in health sector is almost on tack, and these facilities are lacking in veterinary entities. Dr. Karki also explained the baseline status of knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) in zoonoses in these districts. The finding indicated that the level of people incorporated for study on these parameters was lower than the standard. Dr. Nar Bahadur Rajwar, former secretary presented the existing policies and programs related to zoonoses and one health including the analysis and recommendations for the improvement.

In the discussion and ways forward session, the participants, particularly the institutional key persons including MOAD Officiating Secretary, DGs of respective departments, EU representatives, RDs shared their remarks, views, experiences, practices and ways forward about the status of national level programs/activities or initiatives related to zoonoses and one health taken by the government institutions, development agencies and private sector including policy revision, national policy development, institutional set-up, and coordination mechanism. There were also inquiries/questions, comments and feedbacks.

Chair Person Dr. Shrestha concluded the workshop with highlighting the major discussions, issues and remarks. In particular, Dr. Shrestha mentioned that there is need to change vicious circle of the three elements (people – animal – environment) to virtual circles for effective materialization of one health concept.