T3 COHESA Malawi One Health Malawi Work Plan 11.12.2022 Catherine Wood

T3 COHESA Malawi One Health Malawi Work Plan
11.12.2022
Catherine Wood

Work Plan 2 - Governance

2.1.4 Foster the agreement among government entities to establish or strengthen national OH Platforms

A2.2 Strengthen of the operation of existing or new OH platforms that involve cross-government collaboration and engage diverse OH stakeholders

2.3.7 Develop (or improve) OH national goals, strategies and policies in collaboration with national OH platforms

1)    Develop a national policy framework that clarifies all ministry roles and responsibilities relevant to One Health capacity implementation with comprehensive policies that formalize roles and responsibilities of each ministry.  The framework should include new or revised policies on:-

• Zoonotic Disease
• AMR (current policy excludes animal sector)
• Food safety
• Landscape Health Management
• Water Systems Management
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation, particularly climate resilient agricultural practice
• Emergency responses – disease outbreak, natural disaster, other

The framework should ensure that relevant ministries/departments such as PHIM and EAD have legal mandates.

2)    Explore the possibility of institutionalizing the One Health Platform - semi-autonomous **development legal framework**

• Revitalize the current One Health Task Force

3)    Meanwhile, develop an MOU between the human and animal sectors that would include but not be limited to sharing surveillance activity, diagnostic capacity, epidemiological data, reporting to stakeholders, and the general management of zoonotic diseases.

4)    Meanwhile, establish a coordinated surveillance system for infectious diseases, especially zoonotic diseases, and AMR.

5)    Strengthen Emergency Response Capacity

• Establish mechanisms for coordinated/joint contingency fund management and oversight for public health, animal health, and environmental emergencies that ensures funds are available (for example within 24 hours).
• Establish a coordinated response system for infectious disease outbreak and conduct joint simulation exercises
• Establish a coordinated response system for environmental disaster and conduct joint simulation exercises

6)    Finalize the establishment of the Malawi Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA) inclusive of One Health concerns.

7)    Explore possibility of funding baskets for environmental sector wide approach.

8)    Engage Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy on One Health Issues.

Work Plan 3 - Technical Working Group

3.1.2 Establish a Technical Working Group (TWG) for each region with members from leading universities and Inter-University Councils to support benchmarking of OH curricula

3.5.3 Develop and implement training and mentoring programmes for selected OH researchers at research institutes

• Explore methods of regularizing inter-university and inter-departmental exchange to facilitate One Health strengthening in existing curricula.

3.2.1 Co-develop and disseminate with tertiary education institutes information on OH tertiary modules and OH curricula for secondary schools (including career opportunities)

3.3.3 Develop and run short courses on OH for a wide range of students to be held online

3.3.4 Obtain professional recognition of short courses where relevant (e.g. Veterinary Associations accept course as counting towards Continuing Professional Development)

• The Medical Council, Veterinary Council and other professional organizations should give CPD credit to short courses in One Health stewardship.  Develop these short courses.

3.4 Capacitate secondary and tertiary education institutes to deliver OH long and short courses

• Develop One Health short courses in the areas of: Foundations of One Health, zoonotic diseases and biosecurity, surveillance and diagnostics, Human health, Wildlife health, Environmental health and conversation, Food security, nutrition & agriculture, and One Health research methods and implementation for  working professionals, early career professionals and recent graduates.
• Partner with UC Davis to make elements of the international One Health course available in Malawi to early professionals.
• Partner with Georgetown University to offer a year-long certificate course on research methods, epidemiology/statistics, and infectious disease targeted at young professionals in the veterinary, health, and environmental fields.

Universities should incorporate One Health concepts and practices into their academic curricula, such as defined degree programs and themed research areas. 

• LUANAR and University of Edinburgh applied jointly for CIVME grant to do this for BVet.
• Collaborate with MUST in developing their OH MSc and PhD curricula

Engage LWT, Mission Rabies, and other NGO successfully conducting primary education on One Health related topics on possibilities of expansion.

3.5.3 Develop training and mentoring programmes for selected OH researchers at research institutes

• (Need consortium input)

3.5.3.1 twice yearly workshops with researchers + students to present work and think about collaborations & OH aspects of research

Use research symposium at LUANAR 13Dec2022 as model.  Expand to include MUST, KUHeS, LUANAR.

Work Plan 4 - Capacity Building

A4.2 Capacitate service providers to adopt and delivery OH solutions to final beneficiaries

Increase diagnostic laboratory capacity especially on the veterinary side.  Improve nation-wide especially rural area access to CVL.  Enable the average farmer to be able to access results from CVL.

• (In communication with USAID/FAO and NORAD, facillitating collaboration)

Increase surveillance and response capacity at village level/EPA level.

• Training DHOs, AVOs, EHOs, and designated community members in clinical diagnosis of One Health Diseases
• Fuel, data, phones, refrigeration, electricity, water at district health offices and ADD offices. 
• Point of care diagnostics
• Medicines and vaccines
• Access to expert or expert system

4.3 Capacitate PPP to deliver OH solutions to final beneficiaries

Mission Rabies model for disease surveillance and mitigation expanded and applied to other zoonotic diseases

Community Outreach, potentially at World Bank “model villages”, to include, community based surveillance AHISA focusing on syndromic:-

• Preventative health practices, including food safety
• Permaculture – integration of crops, livestock
• water management, aquaculture
• animal and human nutrition
• WASH

3. Help accelerate carbon-friendly, economically-viable alternate cooking initiatives. 

Work Plan 5 - Research / Surveillance

2.2.4 Organise pairing sessions for research institutes with policy-makers and journalists - focus areas

2.2.5 Organise annual science cafés with journalists, government entities, education entities and research institutes

• Host One Health Symposiums regularly at the different universities.
• Enable One Health keynote speakers to present to interested students at the different universities.

2.2.7 Organise professional policy internships and short-term exchange visits across government and private sector entities and service providers

Foster partnerships/collaborations among Malawian researchers and between Malawian researchers and international research institutions including ILRI.

• (Need consortium input)

2.3.8 Organise sensitisation and awareness meetings on applying scientific evidence to develop regional OH strategies, action plans, and policies

4.1.3 Develop and submit OH research proposal

Establishing prevalence of priority zoonotic disease, diseases of economic importance in animals, and diseases related to environmental health in humans.  This will require significant investment in DHO/AVO training, reporting systems, and data-management systems.  Expand existing working models such as Mission Rabies.

Establish cloud-based data base of reported One Health-related diseases accessible to human, animal, and environmental health sectors.  Data to include zoonotic, communicable disease and also diseases related to environmental factors.

Once disease prevalence data is available, research to include:-

• Modeling relating to risk factors including known metrics of human/community health and environmental health.
• Comparison/correlation of zoonotic disease prevalence in animals with zoonotic disease prevalence in humans where data is available.
• Zoonotic disease at livestock-wildlife interface

Multiple studies have been done and are ongoing on AMR patterns in humans and animals.  Disseminate a bulletin of combined, actionable findings.

(See the Innov8 Document for further ideas.)

Further Assessments

2.2.8 Analyse policies and legal documents to identify overlapping mandates of OH government.

4.1.1 Conduct training needs assessment

4.1.2 Review 'off the shelf' and prototype OH solutions

• Request an OIE performance of veterinary services (PVS) gap analysis for the quantitative evaluation of Malawi’s needs and priorities.  (Last performed 2014).  CVL has requested gap analysis of diagnostic capacity.
• Conduct a literature review of One Health challenges at community level – urban and rural.  Identify knowledge gaps, need for further research/survey.
• Conduct a literature review of efficacy of climate change mitigation strategies.
• Review of data collection tools/apps and data management tools in use in human and animal sectors – efficacy, sustainability, compatibility, accessibility.

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