What went on the last couple of months (April-May 2021) in One Health? The G20 and other news

 

 

Highlight was for sure the Global Health Summit at the G20 event. European Commission (EC) President von der Leyen kicked off the Global Health Policy Forum, “an annual high-level event bringing together global health partners in policy dialogues so that your voice and your experience can continue guiding and inspiring us”. Core messages is unity when it comes to health issues. The Global Health Summit resulted in the Rome Declaration, a declaration of principles that aims at being better prepared to epidemics, while at the same time keeping high ethical standards. The Declaration will “guide multilateral cooperation and joint action to prevent future health crises”.

 

EC President von der Leyen and host Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the Global Health Summit. Credit: EC

Unity and high ethical standards are also important when it comes to research and innovation, as seen by the recent EC Communication Europe's strategy for international cooperation in a changing world (here the press release, here the communication). The aim of the EU is to “lead [the world?] by example”. Quite ambitious.

 

"The EU's response is to lead by example, promoting multilateralism, openness and reciprocity in its cooperation with the rest of the world. The EU will facilitate global responses to global challenges, such as climate change or pandemics, respecting international rules and fundamental EU values and strengthening its open strategic autonomy”

envisions the European Commission

 

Besides focusing on upcoming policies, the EC looked back to its past policy initiatives. From this point of view, disappointing were the conclusion of the EC report monitoring the EU Strategy for Protection and Welfare of Animals 2012-2015. Apparently none of the strategy’s objectives has been fully achieved. Something to improve because, as the OIE reports, animal health services can indeed impact human health, more precisely antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

An interesting peak inside upcoming European strategies is given by the meeting minutes of the AMR One Health Network meeting of the 25^th of March 2021. It states, for example, a possible upcoming HERA initiative on AMR (for more info on HERA see my blogpost on the European Health Union), as well as reminding us that the EU AMR Action Plan will soon be updated (in 2022 according to its timeline). The future Action Plan will focus even more on One Health by “including an environmental and plant health dimension”

And talking about environment and AMR, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (president of WHO) and Stella Kyriakides (European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety), called on global policy makers to avoid “the rise of a silent pandemic”, i.e. AMR. The two leaders said: “We should join forces now and work towards a comprehensive Global Action Plan on AMR looking at animal health, human health, plant health and environmental concerns, with a One Health approach at the centre”.

The broadening of the WHO focus from strict human health to One Health issues is also seen by the organisation’s efforts in strengthening food safety, by the interesting report “Nature, biodiversity and health: an overview of interconnections (2021)”, which was published by WHO/Europe, and by the WHO publication “Antimicrobial resistance: An emerging water, sanitation and hygiene issue”. The latter, in particular, highlights that AMR in water might become a major issue in the future, also due to the role of aquaculture (see this comprehensive Nature review). This is relevant also in the EU, as exemplified in the Farm to Fork strategy, which “addresses the challenges of sustainability in the food supply chain and, in the area of seafood, highlights the imminent update of the strategic guidelines on aquaculture” (See this briefing of the EP Think Tank).

The One Health concept indeed broadens the scope of UN and EU agencies, or rather strengthen links between public, animal, and environmental health organisation. EFSA, for example, highlighted the importance that One Health will have in the future of the agency and in EU policies in general, in an interesting editorial authored also by its President Bernhard Url.

The “global sister” of EFSA, FAO, similarly promoted the One Health-One Planet approach by drawing the link between veterinary vaccines, and the protection of humans. 

Vaccinate animals to protect humans, highlighted the FAO. Photo credit: FAO

 

Going back to the topic of AMR, from the risk assessment rather than policy point of view, we have seen two awaited reports in the last couple of months. I am of course talking of the annual EFSA/ECDC joint analysis of zoonotic and indicator bacteria from humans, animals and food (which includes analysis of AMR, check the nice EFSA/ECDC AMR dashboard) and the Fifth OIE Annual Report on Antimicrobial Agents Intended for Use in Animals. While both reports highlights major challenges, they also point out some encouraging decreases of AMR in Europe, and globally of antimicrobial use in animals.