On behalf of PREZODE, Prof. Sascha Knauf, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, participated in the two-day meeting in Munich on October 15-16, 2026.
The drivers of infectious disease emergence and spread lie largely outside the health sector. Climate change and global warming are carrying disease vectors to new regions and higher altitudes, floods are spreading waterborne disease, and encroachment into undisturbed habitats is fueling spillover. Health threats do not respect sectoral boundaries, and neither can our response.
To address the topic and propose pathways for action, the Asia-Europe Foundation Public Health Network (ASEF PHN) convened the event “From Principle to Practice: Operationalizing One Health for Climate Change and Emerging Infectious Diseases in Asia and Europe” in Munich. The meeting was co-organized on October 15-16, 2026, with the Center for Global Health at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Department of Neurology at TUM University Hospital, and the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute. Its aim was to explore how to turn One Health from principle into practice, and to compare how climate change is reshaping infectious disease risk in Asia and Europe.
It brought together government officials, representatives of NGOs, international organizations, academia and research institutions working on climate-health linkages.
Since operationalizing One Health relies as much on sectors outside health as within it, the meeting ensured genuine multisectoral participation and balanced representation from Asian and European ASEM Partner countries.
Professor Sascha Knauf, Director of the Institute of International Animal Health/One Health at Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany’s Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, member of PREZODE, participated in the sessions. He served as a panelist in two of the panel discussions on the first day.
In Session 1, “The Lancet One Health Commission: Summary and Recommendations”, he joined panelists from EFSA, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, SEAOHUN, and the Center for Conservation Innovations to discuss how far the Commission’s recommendations translate into the working conditions of institutions in Asia and Europe. Drawing on his work in wildlife and animal health, he addressed which recommendations are hardest to put into practice at the animal, human and environment interface.
In Session 3, “Operationalising One Health: Cross-Sector Barriers to Integration”, he spoke about the practical and institutional barriers to integrating wildlife and animal health evidence with human health systems, and about what has helped to overcome them, building on the experience of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut as a WOAH Global Collaborating Centre Network for Wildlife Health.
Outcomes of the meeting shall be available soon on the Asia-Europe Foundation Public Health Network website.