IHR-PVS National Bridging Workshops, a tool to operationalize the collaboration between human and animal health while advancing sector-specific goals in countries

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245312
• Publication Date: 2021-06-01T18:11:03Z
• Authors: Guillaume Belot; François Caya; Kaylee Myhre Erre...; Tieble Traore; Brice Lafia; Artem Skrypnyk; Djhane Montabord; Maud Carron; Susan Corning; Rajesh Sreedharan; Nicolas Isla; Tanja Schmidt; Gyanendra Gongal; Dalia Samhouri; Enrique Perez-Gut...; Ana Riviere-Cinna...; Jun Xing; Stella Chungong; Stephane de la Ro...
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Preparedness; International Cooperation; Knowledge management; FOS: Political science; Veterinary medicine; Mental Health and Well-being in Veterinary Profession; Health Professions; FOS: Health sciences; Global Health; Agricultural and Biological Sciences; 0403 veterinary science; Computer security; Zoonoses; Business; Cooperative Behavior; Operationalization; Political science; veterinarian-client communication; Public health; Q; R; Life Sciences; 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences; FOS: Philosophy, ethics and religion; 3. Good health; Medicine; Goals; Research Article; Science; Dynamics of Livestock Disease Transmission and Control; FOS: Law; Emerging Zoonotic Diseases and One Health Approach; Nursing; Epistemology; Speech and Hearing; 03 medical and health sciences; Health Sciences; Humans; Animals; One Health; Animal health; Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health; Bridging (networking); Computer science; Process (computing); Philosophy; Operating system; Process management; Agronomy and Crop Science; Law

Collaborative, One Health approaches support governments to effectively prevent, detect and respond to emerging health challenges, such as zoonotic diseases, that arise at the human-animal-environmental interfaces. To overcome these challenges, operational and outcome-oriented tools that enable animal health and human health services to work specifically on their collaboration are required. While international capacity and assessment frameworks such as the IHR-MEF (International Health Regulations—Monitoring and Evaluation Framework) and the OIE PVS (Performance of Veterinary Services) Pathway exist, a tool and process that could assess and strengthen the interactions between human and animal health sectors was needed. Through a series of six phased pilots, the IHR-PVS National Bridging Workshop (NBW) method was developed and refined. The NBW process gathers human and animal health stakeholders and follows seven sessions, scheduled across three days. The outputs from each session build towards the next one, following a structured process that goes from gap identification to joint planning of corrective measures. The NBW process allows human and animal health sector representatives to jointly identify actions that support collaboration while advancing evaluation goals identified through the IHR-MEF and the OIE PVS Pathway. By integrating sector-specific and collaborative goals, the NBWs help countries in creating a realistic, concrete and practical joint road map for enhanced compliance to international standards as well as strengthened preparedness and response for health security at the human-animal interface.