This article was supported by One Health Hub.
[NAIROBI, SciDevNet] One Health specialists are calling for more coherent and integrated One Health surveillance systems, arguing that linking community-level data across sectors is essential for early detection and response to emerging health threats.
One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral approach, which recognises the connections between people, animals, plants, and the environment, and seeks to improve health outcomes through joint action across these sectors.
Leading experts in the field of One Health joined a virtual roundtable discussion on Thursday (12 December), organised by SciDev.Net and the agricultural research organisation CABI (the parent organisation of SciDev.Net), focused on research findings around One Health surveillance and how best to implement them.
“Many countries already collect large volumes of animal, human, environment, or plant health data, but they remain siloed, uneven, unequal, and weakly linked to decision-making.”
Chadia Wannous, One Health global coordinator, WOAH
Panellist Elizabeth Gonese, who leads One Health surveillance in Africa for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said communities must receive information they can interpret, trust, and act upon.
“At IFRC we interact with One Health surveillance systems that churn out data that may not necessarily be linkable to the realities in the community,” she said.
“This is important so that we are not taking things in isolation and trying to create as many parallel systems as possible.”
The roundtable highlighted findings from the One Health Horizon Scanning report, led by the One Health Hub through the Juno Evidence Alliance, which sought to identify where new evidence is most urgently needed to strengthen One Health systems.
The exercise identified five research priority areas, with integrated surveillance systems—linking data and action across human, animal, plant, and environmental health—ranked as the most urgent.
Gonese stressed that surveillance systems exist to provide simple, actionable information.
“So while talking about One Health, to what level can you synthesise data so that it is usable across the different levels of national health systems?” she asked.
Community-level surveillance
According to Kikiope Oluwarore, founder and executive director of the One Health and Development Initiative in Nigeria, disease outbreaks almost always begin at the community level, making communities a critical focal point for surveillance.
“We have seen health officers, veterinarians and environment officers collect data within their respective sectors, but how much of this data is being communicated to each other?” she asked.
“Most of the data is fragmented, uninterpretable and not speaking to each other.”
To create effective surveillance systems, she added, human, animal, and environmental data must be collected systematically, allowing authorities to “better prepare and be ready as soon as possible to respond to any outbreaks”.
Fragmented systems
Chadia Wannous, One Health global coordinator at the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), said the Horizon Scanning findings align with WOAH’s assessment that integrated surveillance is the most urgent priority.
However, she warned that fragile and fragmented surveillance systems remain a major barrier to early detection and response to zoonotic diseases—diseases that spread between animals and humans—antimicrobial resistance, and other cross-sector threats.
“The challenge is no longer knowing that integration is important but understanding how to make integration work in real national contexts,” she said.
“Many countries already collect large volumes of animal, human, environment, or plant health data, but they remain siloed, uneven, unequal, and weakly linked to decision-making.
“So, the priority is not surveillance in the abstract, but how to make it operational and decision oriented.”
Environmental pressures
Michael Osae, director of the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, said integrated One Health surveillance also needs to consider the ecological and agricultural drivers that influence disease risks.
“We have evidence of declining pollinator populations, for example, and beneficial insects that control pests,” he said.
“We are throwing all kinds of insecticides to control the pests we see, but these are having adverse effects on other organisms.”
He said the growing use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilisers has implications not only for plant health but also for human and ecosystem health and should be part of integrated surveillance efforts.
Gonese added that more investment is needed in surveillance systems spanning different sectors, countries, and regions, which reflect the interconnected nature of One Health risks.
“There is need to channel more funds into setting up surveillance systems that are useful across countries, and continentally, and that speak to the whole ecosystem,” she said.
This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.
The article was supported by One Health Hub. One Health Hub is managed by CABI with funding from UK International Development; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.
