By Sola Ogundipe

New ways of combating  infectious diseases such as lassa fever, ebola virus disease (evd), malaria among other zoonotic (animal-borne) diseases in west africa, will take the centrestage  as more than 200 policymakers, development partners, public health experts and advocates from west africa and around the world  gather in dakar, senegal, november  8-11, 2016.

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa

Ministers of human health, animal health and wildlife from nigeria, and 16 other west african countries are billed to participate in the event,  tagged the west african regional conference on one health.

The event is aimed to highlight the importance of addressing emerging health threats using a “one health” approach – one that takes into account the inextricable link between the health of humans, animals and their environments.

At the forum, regional and global leaders will discuss strategies for predicting, preventing, detecting and responding to emerging health threats across the region by collectively addressing the health of people, animals and the environment.

An estimated 75 per cent of infectious diseases that have emerged over the past decade have been caused by pathogens that spread to people from animals or animal products. Trends like globalisation, urbanisation and climate change make it easy for these ‘zoonotic’ diseases to transfer to humans and spread quickly around the world.

The recent ebola virus disease outbreak in west africa is a prime example of this; a single case of the virus in a remote village, likely contracted through an infected animal, ultimately spread between more than 28,000 people, including in urban capital cities of guinea, liberia, mali, senegal , sierra leone and nigeria.

West africa currently faces outbreaks of other zoonotic diseases, such as avian influenza in poultry in nigeria and rift valley fever in niger, as well as other public health threats, such as the appearance of zika virus in cabo verde and guinea bissau. Meetings between the health officials and technical personnel will focus on next steps for integrating one health approaches into existing regional and country-level systems and programmes.

A communique  communiqué to guide future action for the west african sub-region will be issued at the end of the conference.

The event is being hosted by the world health organization’s regional office for africa, the un food and agriculture organisation (fao), in collaboration with the economic community of west african states  commission, ecowas,  the west african health organization (waho), among others.