The International Health Regulation (IHR) and Performance of Veterinary Services (PVS) National Bridging Workshop (NBW) was conducted from 21 to 23 February 2023, with the participation of key stakeholders from the animal health, human health and environment sectors of the country. The Workshop was hosted by the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka with organizational support from WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).
The main objective of the IHR-PVS NBW was to provide an opportunity to human and animal health services of Sri Lanka to review their current collaboration gaps in key technical areas and to develop a joint roadmap of corrective measures and mobilize strategic investments to improve the collaborative work at the animal-human interface in the prevention, detection and control of zoonotic diseases.
This workshop came at a critical point in time ahead of the planned Joint External Evaluation of IHR Core Capacities of the country in mid-2023 and the development of the National Action Plan for Health Security 2024-2028.
The workshop consisted of seven sessions strategically leading the participants towards prioritizing joint objectives and devising a joint roadmap.
During the NBW workshop participants identified main areas that need further improvement in the current collaboration for 15 key technical areas which included, local coordination, financing, legislation, risk communication and risk assessment.
During the workshop WHO’s IHR MEF and WOAH PVS Pathway tools were presented. These tools are used for assessments of the country’s capacities to deliver public health and veterinary services. Later, areas of improvement identified in previous sessions were mapped on the IHR-PVS matrix.
Using the results of these discussions and making use of existing capacity assessment reports - Joint External Evaluation and Performance of Veterinary Services Evaluation - stakeholders developed a joint, consensual, and operational NBW Roadmap to improve the collaboration in the coming months and years. This final roadmap contains 45 activities, to fulfill 16 key objectives, and is divided into five sections: (1) Coordination, Legislation and Finance, (2) Surveillance and Laboratory, (3) Response and Field Investigation, (4) Risk assessment and Risk communication, and (5) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).
The activities of the joint roadmap intend to critically explore and bridge the existing gaps between the human and animal health sectors as well as explore resource sensitive integration of the sectors for One Health. Overall, the workshop provided an opportunity for stakeholders to come together and it led to strengthening of collaboration among partners to better prevent, detect, and respond to health threats at the human-animal-environment interface.
Having completed this workshop, Sri Lanka joins the seven countries (out of eleven) in the WHO South-East Asia Region and 45th out of 194 Member States that have completed IHR-PVS bridging workshops and have subsequently developed roadmaps in the prevention, detection and response to zoonotic diseases and other health events at the animal-human interface.
Figure 1: Participants working on a case scenario evaluating the level of collaboration between the sectors for 15 key technical areas.
Figure 2: Mapping of the gaps by positioning the selected cards from all groups on the IHR-PVS matrix
Figure 3: to identifying joint activities to improve the collaboration between the sectors