Join the Ontario Agricultural College and the School of Environmental Sciences at our One Health Lecture Series

Featuring keynote by Dr. Hélène Carabin​, School of Public Health, University of Montreal.

Discussion panelist includes:

• Dr. David McCarthy, Dept of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Brisbane Australia​
• Dr. Marc Habash​, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph​

The concept of One Health has been around for centuries, but the official term was adopted in 2004. Despite its devastation for human health, the COVID-19 pandemic had the advantage of raising awareness regarding the One Health approach globally. A “One Health High Level Expert Panel” (OHHLEP), launched in June 2021, proposed a definition for the One Health approach on Dec 1, 2021, at the same time as a special World Health Assembly session was taking place to initiate discussions about a potential pandemic treaty. In April 2022, the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Environment Programme signed a memorandum of understanding to form a quadripartite group to tackle One Health challenges through a legal agreement. However, despite all this international support the hardest challenge remains the operationalization and demonstration of the added-value of the approach. In this seminar, I will present a few elements of the history and global governance of One Health, but also give an example of its operationalization in a study we conducted in Burkina Faso, which also came with many governance and political challenges.  ​

OAC gratefully acknowledges John McCallum OAC’67 for making the One Health Lecture possible​