USING THE ONE HEALTH APPROACH TO PRIORITIZE KEY ZOONOSES IN SRI LANKA

The One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization workshop was held from 21-23 August 2024 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The workshop was organized by the Government of Sri Lanka and technically supported by the WHO country office of Sri Lanka and WHO Southeast Asia Regional Office, in close coordination with the World Organisation for Animal Health Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Tokyo, FAO, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office of India.

A total of 68 participants from One Health sectors, including academia, research institutions, international organizations, and the local facilitators, attended the workshop.

The main objectives of the workshop were to prioritize zoonotic diseases of utmost importance and develop the joint action plans to address them through collaborative efforts of human, animal, wildlife, food safety and environmental health sectors.

The participants used five criteria for multi-criteria decision analysis to prioritize the zoonotic diseases using US CDC tool. A ranked list of 52 zoonotic diseases was generated, and identified top 10 diseases viz, leptospirosis, rabies, acute respiratory diseases, zoonotic bovine tuberculosis, Japanese encephalitis, listeriosis, melioidosis, brucellosis, leishmaniasis, and foodborne diseases and developed priority action plans. Sri Lanka will develop more detailed and costed operational plan for these diseases and will be integrated into the National Action Plan for Health Security 2026-2027. A strong commitment to implement these action plans was evident across all the sectors.