Strengthening Joint Risk Assessment Capacity at the Human-Animal- Environment Interface in Egypt

Cairo, 6 October 2020

The Tripartite collaboration among the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) is taking root as evidenced by their joint effort in developing, piloting, and implementing the Joint Risk Assessment (JRA) tool in member countries, including Egypt.

Multidisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration has become a requisite practice to effectively address health threats that emerge at the human-animal-environment interface including antimicrobial resistance and food safety threats.

Developed by the Tripartite since 2014, the JRA operational tool provides an avenue for collaboration among the animal, human and environmental health sectors in order to assess the level and magnitude of risk of health hazards that emerge at the interface.

Cognizant of this and responding to a request from the Government of Egypt, the Tripartite organized a JRA workshop in Cairo from 5th - 7th October 2020, which benefitted 47 One Health practitioners drawn from the human, animal and environmental health sectors.

“Training of local experts on joint risk assessment would be a milestone for controlling zoonotic diseases in the country through a One Health approach,” said Zelalem Tadesse, FAO-ECTAD Egypt Team Leader.

The workshop enabled health experts to jointly assess two selected priority health hazards, while being trained on the use of the JRA tool for assessing the risk level of other priority health hazards in the future.

“The success of joint risk assessment depends on effective communication among concerned sectors throughout the process, ideally leading to a consensus on the outcome of the assessment and production of joint recommendations. This allows decision-makers to build and implement science-based risk management measures and communication messages that can be aligned between sectors or implemented jointly.” said Heba Mahrous, One Health Consultant, WHO, EMRO.

The workshop is supported by technical experts from the headquarters and regional offices of FAO, WHO and OIE, who have also delivered remarks during the opening of the three-day workshop.

The JRA workshop is being coordinated by the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MOALR), and Ministry of Environment (MOE), along with FAO and WHO county offices.