We are happy to announce that the Alliance secretariat will be organizing Session 06 “The Cost of Inaction – the Importance of Pandemic Prevention at the Source” on October 16th at 14:00 CEST. The World Health Summit (WHS) is the unique international strategic forum for global health. Held annually in Berlin, it brings together stakeholders from politics, science, the private sector, and civil society from around the world to set the agenda for a healthier future. More information and online registration can be found here.

Session 06 – The Cost of Inaction – the Importance of Pandemic Prevention at the Source

The Need to Bolster Pandemic Prevention at the Source to Reduce Costs and Provide Co-Benefits to Climate and Biodiversity

Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, CEST: 02:00 PM – 03:30 PM / UTC: 12:00 PM – 01:30 PM

Scientists calculate the cost of preventing further pandemics – via forest protection and improved wildlife trade regulation – over the next decade would amount to just 2% of the estimated financial damage caused by COVID-19. Such prevention strategies would also come with considerable co-benefits for climate and biodiversity. Research shows the proportion of pathogens crossing from one stage to the next, from pre-emergence to pandemic stage decreases as the costs for stopping those increases. In this inverse correlation: the earlier we prevent, the more cost-efficient it is.

Yet attention is currently focused on later-stage prevention, preparedness and response. According to WHO’s Cristina Romanelli, only 3% of current efforts to stop future pandemics goes to primary prevention (pre-spillover), while the remaining 97% is invested in secondary prevention and preparedness measures.

In the wake of immediate reactions to COVID-19 – most of which were taken under immense pressure to respond to and manage an ongoing crisis – many key actors, are now contemplating how to avoid and handle possible future pandemics more intelligently, efficiently and effectively. Considering this challenge, we ask: How can lessons learned from COVID-19 and primary prevention take a more prominent role in global responses to reduce the risk of future pandemics? What would such a policy path look like? And how might it incorporate regulations in line with WHO’s Manifesto (“Prescriptions for a healthy and green recovery from COVID-19”) that recognize the incredible opportunity for investments contributing to solving the triple, intersecting crises of health, climate and biodiversity?

Chairs:

Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen

Physician, Science Journalist, Founder of Healthy Planet – Healthy People Foundation and World Health Summit Ambassador | Germany

Speakers:

Prof. Dr. Andrew Dobson

Princeton University | Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology | Professor | United States of America

Jochen Flasbarth

Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) | State Secretary | Germany

Dr. Catherine Machalaba

EcoHealth Alliance | Senior Policy Advisor and Senior Scientist | United States of America

Dr. María Neira

World Health Organization (WHO) | Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health | Director

The whole session was recorded and can be found here: WS 06 – The Cost of Inaction – The Importance of Pandemic Prevention at the Source – YouTube

This session is organized by the International Alliance against Health Risks in Wildlife Trade.

Thursday, March 3rd 2022

World Wildlife Day aims to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants. In 2022, the OIE will organize a webinar across five regions and in twelve different time zones, connecting wildlife health stakeholders globally. The webinar will be held in two sessions—eastern hemisphere and western hemisphere—and the three official OIE languages (English, French and Spanish).

The OIE is addressing challenges involving wildlife health through implementation of the OIE Wildlife Health Framework. They look to the global community to protect wildlife health to achieve One Health. Towards this goal, the OIE Regional Representation in Asia and the Pacific, in association with the OIE Sub-Regional Representation for Eastern Africa and the OIE Regional Representation for the Americas, are organizing a webinar on “Global wildlife health” on World Wildlife Day in 2022.

OIE invites you to join the event, which will take place on Zoom® with livestreaming on YouTube®. Active participation from the live audience is encouraged.

Thursday 3 March 2022

• Session 1 (in English and French)
  at 2am Buenos Aires / 6am Paris / 8am Nairobi / 2pm Tokyo  
• Session 2 (in English, French and Spanish)
  at 11am Buenos Aires / 3pm Paris / 5pm Nairobi / 11pm Tokyo 

Participation

The event is open for participants globally. The target audience will be multi-sectoral participants with an interest in wildlife health. OIE particularly invites university students and young professionals to join the webinar. 

Agenda

Welcome            Dr Lesa Thompson, OIE Regional Representation for Asia and the Pacific, Tokyo

Opening remarks             Special guest speaker

Spotlight on the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)        [Chair: Lesa Thompson]

• Current and future OIE activities on wildlife
  Dr Keith Hamilton, Preparedness and Resilience Department, OIE headquarters, Paris
• Global situation of wildlife disease surveillance
  Dr Mariana Delgado, Preparedness and Resilience Department, OIE headquarters, Paris
• Early detection systems for wildlife
  Dr Yacinthe Guigma, EBO-SURSY, OIE Regional Representation for Africa, Bamako
• Interactive session          Mentimeter® quiz & participant opinions

Wildlife health globe-trotting      [Chair: Patrick Bastiaensen]

• Session introduction
  Dr Patrick Bastiaensen, OIE Sub-Regional Representation for Eastern Africa, Nairobi
• Asia and the Pacific
  Dr Hirofumi Kugita, OIE Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, Tokyo
• African swine fever in wild pigs in Asia and the Pacific
  Dr Brendan Cowled, Executive Consultant and Director, AusVet, Canberra
• Middle East
  Dr Ghazi Yehia, OIE Regional Representative for the Middle East, Beirut
• Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in wildlife in the Middle East
  Dr Ahmad Al-Majali, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Al Ramtha, ‎Irbid‎
• Europe
  Dr Budimir Plavsic, OIE Regional Representative for Europe, Moscow
• Rabies in wildlife in Europe
  Dr. Maxim Sîrbu, National Food Safety Agency, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău

Break

• Africa
  Dr Karim Tounkara, OIE Regional Representative for Africa, Bamako
• Anthrax in wildlife in Africa
  Dr Augusta Kivunyza, Kitui County Veterinary Services, Kenya Zoonotic Diseases Unit, Nairobi
• Americas
  Dr Luis Barcos, OIE Regional Representative for the Americas, Buenos Aires
• White nose syndrome in the Americas
  Dr Jordi Segers, Scientific Coordinator Bats, Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, Halifax

Ecosystem health and biodiversity     [Chair: Maria-Eugenia Chimenti]

• Ecosystem health for biodiversity
  Dr Marcela Uhart, University of California Davis, OIE Working Group for Wildlife, Davis
• Interactive session          Mentimeter® participant opinions & questions for speakers

Closing remarks               Dr Monique Eloit, OIE Director General, OIE headquarters, Paris

Close     Dr Maria-Eugenia Chimenti, OIE Regional Representation for the Americas, Buenos Aires

Photo: sutirta budiman

February 2nd at 10:00 – 11:30 CST (Mx-GT-BZ)

You are invited to participate in the GIZ regional programme Selva Maya first One Health webinar and discuss with experts from academia and public institutions the importance of disease surveillance and primary prevention.

Photo: CHUTTERSNAP

14.12.2021 at 16:00 – 17:30 CET

The WBGU recently published a discussion paper “Planetary Health: What we need to talk about”. The aim of this four-pager is to stimulate a discussion on the role of health in the global transformation towards sustainability. The insights gained from this dialogue process are incorporated into the Advisory Board’s discussions on its new flagship report (forthcoming early 2023). The public presentation and discussion of the new paper on December 14 is part of this dialogue process (the presentation of the paper in German will follow in early February 2022). 

Programme

Impulse statement

Sabine Gabrysch, WBGU, Professor for Climate Change and Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 

Panel discussants

• Howard Frumkin, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington
• Cristina Romanelli, Programme Officer, Biodiversity, Climate Change and Health, WHO, Montreal
• Ivar A. Baste, Special Advisor, Norwegian Environment Agency, report lead Making Peace with Nature (UNEP), Past IPBES Bureau 
• Sabine Gabrysch, WBGU, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and PIK

Moderator: Maike Voss, German Alliance for Climate Change and Health (KLUG)  

What it is about

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how vulnerable we are and how closely connected we are with Nature. Health cannot be taken for granted. Do we take the prerequisites for healthy living seriously enough? Or are we, as a civilization, systematically jeopardizing our health?

Healthy people as part of a healthy planet Earth

In recent decades, as prosperity has increased, human health has improved worldwide; yet not everyone has benefited. In poorer population groups, infectious diseases and maternal and child mortality still cause a great deal of avoidable suffering. Increasingly, however, the gains in prosperity are themselves having a negative impact on health: on the one hand as ‘too much of a good thing’ through the overconsumption of food and the displacement of physical activity from everyday life, on the other as harmful side effects in the form of air pollution and environmental toxins. As a result, lifestyle diseases such as overweight, diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are on the rise worldwide. Last but not least, our resource-intensive way of life, with its immense emissions of greenhouse gases, the destruction of natural habitats and increasing pollution of land and sea, has led to a planetary crisis. It threatens the natural life-support systems on Earth and thus the health of all people. Heat waves, disastrous floods and pandemics drastically demonstrate to us that our society is dependent on functioning ecosystems and a stable climate. The planetary crisis could furthermore threaten the cohesion of our societies and overburden healthcare systems. But the crisis also gives us an opportunity to rethink our idea of prosperity and progress, to break habits and make our societies fairer, more sustainable and healthier. Because the increasing environmental and health problems often have common roots, synergies can be found in approaches to solving them. We are at a crossroads. Society, business and politics must assume responsibility and initiate a comprehensive transformation that leads to healthy human life on a healthy planet.

Ten key issues to debate

WBGU  identified ten key issues in dealing with planetary health and developed a couple of questions for each issue (see discussion paper). These questions are intended to stimulate a debate on this topic and to encourage people to get involved in these developments. In the course of its current work on a report dealing with the relationship between health and global sustainability, the WBGU will organize various events at which the above questions can be discussed.

 

Planetary Health: What we need to talk about

Video and Discussion paper

Photo: NASA

Tuesday 28th September 12:00 – 13:30 CET Webinar hosted by MEP

About this Event

Wildlife around the globe is under intense pressure from human activity and over-exploitation.

Illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade, poor governance, and corruption have significant negative impacts on ecosystems (e.g. deforestation, forest degradation) and the loss of multiple wild species, affecting the integrity of whole ecosystems, contributing to climate change, and negatively impacting local livelihoods, economic development, and security.

The current COVID-19 pandemic and other disease outbreaks of zoonotic origin such as SARS and Ebola clearly demonstrate the critical need to apply a truly trans-sectoral One Health approach, as a matter of urgency. Efforts must be focused on preventing pandemics of zoonotic origin at their source – in other words, stopping them at the point of spillover of pathogens from animals to humans, well before they can become local outbreaks, epidemics, or global pandemics.

This webinar – organised by the MEPs for Wildlife in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Humane Society International/Europe (HSI) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) – will discuss the on-the-ground impact of markets for live wildlife, particularly for human consumption, and associated wildlife trade (either from the wild or breeding facilities), the links to biodiversity, climate, security, and health and how to address these threats through an integrated One Health approach.

Programme

Welcome remarks

Hilde Vautmans, MEP, Chair of MEPs for Wildlife group

Short presentation

Prof. Dr. Chris Walzer, Executive Director, Health Program, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)

Moderated panel discussion

• Jorge Rodriguez Romero, Deputy Head of Unit, Multilateral Environmental Cooperation, DG Environment

• Dr. Bernard Van Goethem, Director, Crisis preparedness in food, animals and plants, DG SANTE

. Dr. Anne-Lise Chaber, One Health expert, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide

• Cristina Romanelli, Programme Officer for Biodiversity, Climate Change and Health, World Health Organization (WHO)

Moderator

Dr. Joanna Swabe, Senior Director of Public Affairs, Humane Society International – Europe

Concluding remarks

Catherine Bearder, former MEP and founding Chair of MEPs for Wildlife group