By Augustine Octavius
The implementation of three documents known as the One Health Coordination Platform for Liberia has been launched in Monrovia by Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor.
The three documents One Health Coordination include” One Health Governance Manual, the National Action Plan(NAP) for Antimicrobial Resistance(AMR) and the National Action Plan for Health Security.
The “One Health” approach is a proactive, integrated approach that calls for multi- sectoral and interdisciplinary engagement across the human, animal and environmental sectors to prevent, detect and immediate respond to interconnected health threats.
The concept of the One Health approach began to gain attention from Liberian stakeholders during the 2014-2016 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak across West Africa which presented a clear case for multi-sectoral coordination and collaboration to effectively response to diseases.
Speaking in her capacity as the chairperson on One Health Steering Committee, Vice President Taylor noted that it is only with good health, a nation is impacted positively due to the healthy condition from its people.
She stressed the need for partners and government to create a strong Emergency Response Team that will prevent diseases that are threats to people’s lives in an effort to archive the government’s “Pro poor Agenda”.
VP Taylor urged NPHIL and partners to also concentrate their work on the prevention of maternal mortality, stressing that it is sadden to know that many women died as the result of child birth.
The Liberian Vice President stressed the need for the team to begin vaccinating dogs from rabies so as to avoid human contracting the disease from dog, in case a dog bites somebody.
”In the 70s, dogs were vaccinated from rabies, and I hope something can be done now to reduce the death of people as the result of dog bites,” VP Taylor said.
She further said: “we need to raise awareness as it relates to reducing Maternal Mortality, because there are lot of women dying daily while giving birth.”
“I think that to promote the pro poor agenda of this government NPHIL and partners need to create a strong Emergency Response Team to prevent disease, so that if there is an emergency of an outbreak, we will immediately response to it,” the Liberian Vice President said.
However, Vice President Taylor amongst other things lauded NPHIL and its partners for the efforts put into place to have the documents reach its final stage for implementation.
For his part, the Director General of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), Tolbert Nyesuah assured the team of his institution readiness to combat diseases that may pose any threat to the country.
Mr. Nyenswah noted that as part of institution’s mandate to help the Ministry of Health response to outbreaks of diseases in the country, NPHIL and its partners will begin the full implementation of the documents to detect and prevent diseases.
Meanwhile, the One Health Approach comprised of a joint ministerial sector such as the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, the Forestry Development Authority, (with support from International Partners such as United States Agency for International Development (USAID),World Health Organization , the United States Center Disease Control, among others).