(PAM COMS) 21st July 2016 - The Hon. Eugene Hamilton attended the 17th RIMSA meeting held in Asunción, Paraguay. The Minister had the opportunity to meet with Ministers of Agriculture and of Health, representatives of food producers and consumers, and international organizations. The meeting was organized by the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO). The theme of the gathering was “One Health and Sustainable Development Goals,"
“One Health” is the integrative effort of multiple disciplines working at various levels to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment. It goes far beyond just medics and veterinarians working together to also include environmental, social, economic, environmental, agricultural and other scientists to address both the societal and scientific issues at play in a continuous integrative process to find appropriate and sustainable solutions through engagement with relevant decision-makers and affected local communities who are affected by a problem.
In 2014 St Kitts and Nevis hosted an international One Health conference with the purpose to facilitate trans-disciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration to enable the One Health model to be implemented in the Caribbean region.
Historically the many countries of the Caribbean carry a high burden of chronic and infectious diseases and struggle with complex economic and developmental issues that continuously pressurize inhabitants and their natural environment posing a threat to the region’s terrestrial and marine biodiversity. The outcome of the One Health conference was a drafted framework for practicing One Health in the Caribbean that emphasizes capacity building and sustainability.
A coordinated inter-sectoral approach enables a resource-effective, holistic approach for managing these One Health issues.
One Health functions such as research, surveillance, networking and rapid responses can be coordinated and managed within an integrated structure rather than separate vertical silos. Planning activities such as goal-oriented implementation, progress monitoring, after-action evaluation, and re-engineering will be done in a more expeditious manner. These attributes make sense in low-resource countries like St. Kitts and Nevis.
An example of instituting inter-sectoral coordination was the establishment of a “Monkey Task Force”, which involves cross-sectoral collaboration with government ministries, academic institutes and research facilities, local businesses and the general public including local farmers. The aim of this task force has been to identify ways in which the African vervet monkey populations on the two island federation can be controlled, how to minimize crop destruction - a significant negative impact to local farmers as well as how to minimize potential health risks at the monkey-human interface including zoonotic bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases such as leptospirosis, salmonellosis and norovirus that could be transmitted to residents and/or tourists.
Progress has already been made to understand the extent of this issue and now collaborations are being formed to put multiple strategies into action, both locally and ultimately island-wide. Earlier this month a “Monkey Summit” was convened by the government to bring together the various stakeholders to review the situation and develop an appropriate, acceptable and sustainable national action plan for addressing the problem.
Many lessons were learnt as stakeholders realized the concerns of the various sectors of our society.
While the farmer would choose extinction, the scientists would choose preservation and the environmentalist would choose management and control
In order to implement strategies for one health approach to the monkey challenge, Minister Hamilton recognized that we must begin with a national policy; a medium-term (5-7 years) strategic plan and/or short-term (1 -2 years) work plan elucidating principles and goals, and identify the essential functional and structural elements. Implementation must be guided by lines of action, a budget for each line, and an accountability framework.
Minister Hamilton noted that while crafting policy and plans is the easy part, the Achilles Heel is two-fold. Do we have the “Political Will” and can we source the “Funding”.
There are four structural components to implementation of the one-health policy with regard to the management and control of monkeys in my State
1. Identification of One Health problems through stakeholder engagement
2. Conduct a comprehensive, trans-disciplinary needs assessment addressing the economic, social and ecological determinants and determining the total societal impact of the problem (not just health, not just agriculture but total impact on the communities affected)
3. Mobilize resources based on the evidence gathered to manage the risk identified
4. Build trust among all One Health stakeholders and the public
The fact that the Prime Minister has given Hon. Hamilton the portfolios of Health, Agriculture and Environment indicates that the government has completely embraced the vision for a one health approach.
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