Tripartite supported National Workshops on One Health Zoonotic Diseases Prioritization and Joint Risk Assessment under Pandemic Fund in Bhutan

The One Health Secretariat organized workshops on Zoonotic Diseases Prioritization (OHZDP) and Joint Risk Assessment (JRA) from 29 April – 1 May and 2 – 4 May 2024, respectively at Paro in Bhutan. The workshop was facilitated by technical experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) based on the request of the Royal Government of Bhutan. The Pandemic Fund Project funded the workshops.

The workshops were aimed at prioritizing the zoonotic diseases using the US CDC (United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tool based on multicriteria decision tree analysis and building Bhutan’s capacity for conducting JRA using the Tripartite JRA Operational Tool (JRA OT). A total of 40 participants attended the workshop from human health, animal health, food safety, wildlife, and environment sectors. The participants included officials from national and sub-national levels with a good mix of senior and young professionals and 22.5% were female participants.

During the workshop, a list of 55 zoonotic diseases ranked in ascending order of importance was generated based on five criteria jointly agreed by all the sectors. The criteria included epidemic and pandemic potential, disease burden and emerging threats, social and economic impact, the severity of disease to humans and animals including wildlife, and the capability of Bhutan’s preparedness and response capacities. The top 10 diseases included rabies, avian influenza A(H5N1), leptospirosis, brucellosis, enterohemorrhagic E. coli, Dengue fever, Scrub typhus, bovine tuberculosis, anthrax, and salmonellosis. Participants were also trained to conduct JRA using four contextualized and fictitious case studies based on prioritization exercise, i.e. AI A(H5N1), rabies, brucellosis, and anthrax) using JRA OT. A list of recommendations comprising follow-up actions was endorsed for implementation.

The Bhutan One Health Secretariat will lead the implementation of the following key recommendations:

• Develop comprehensive action plans to address the top 10 priority zoonotic diseases including the target for achieving elimination of dog-mediated human rabies by 2028, before the global deadline of 2030.
• Develop the rabies elimination plan and dossier to seek its technical endorsement from the WHO and WOAH and start the documentation process.
• Institutionalize the establishment of national level JRA coordination mechanism.
• Conduct One Health Joint Plan of Action (OH JPA) Workshop for revising Bhutan One Health strategy plan 2018-2023 and align it with 6 action tracks under OH JPA.
• Establish districts and municipalities One Health Committee at the sub-national level.