The One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that sustainably balances and optimizes human, animal and ecosystem health.
While topics encompassing health, food, water, energy, and the environment are very broad with sector-specific and specialist concerns, collaboration across sectors and disciplines contributes to an overall approach: One Health. This approach is crucial for effectively preventing the emergence of zoonotic diseases emergence. It makes it possible to grasp the full spectrum of disease control – from disease prevention to detection, preparedness, response, and management – and to improve and promote health and sustainability.
Over the past few decades, different actors and scientific fields have developed a holistic and transdisciplinary approach to health in response to zoonotic diseases. UN agencies have adopted the One Health approach. Since 2021, the Quadripartite alliance (involving the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Environmental Program, and the World Organization for Animal Health) has promoted One Health to enhance preparedness in preventing, predicting, detecting, and responding to global health threats while also ensuring sustainable development. In 2020, the Quadripartite established a One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) to produce recommendations on the prevention of and response to future health crises and to inform citizens about the issues at stake (see left).
PREZODE strategy embodies the One Health approach
In line with One Health approaches, PREZODE develops multidisciplinary, multisectoral and multi-actor collaborations and involves communities in scientifically based prevention activities. The PREZODE initiative fulfils this holistic perspective with a Strategic Agenda embracing the One Health approach. The Strategic Agenda aligns with the One Health Joint Plan of Action (OH JPA), designed by the Quadripartite to create sustainable and holistic solutions to better manage threats to the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment, and to prevent potential future pandemics. This will enable the development of strategies to minimize human populations’ exposure to zoonotic pathogens and, ultimately, foster zoonotic disease prevention.
PREZODE aims to provide scientific evidence to support both OHHLEP and the Quadripartite in promoting and implementing measures to prevent pandemic threats.