By
Ewoenam Kpodo, GNA
Tokor (V/R), Nov.
08, GNA – Dr William Adu, the Deputy National Director, Veterinary Services,
has advised the public to seek veterinary services regularly for animals to
keep them healthy to avoid transmitting deadly diseases to humans.
He said healthy
animals meant healthy human beings, because deadly diseases such as bird flu and
rabies could be transmitted from animals to humans.
Dr Adu was speaking
at an event to climax Ghana’s third (fourth globally) annual International
“One Health Day” held at Tokor in the Ketu South Municipality.
One Health Day is a
global campaign marked every November 3 to bring attention to the need for a
One Health approach to address the shared health threats at the
human–animal–environment interface, initiated in 2016 by the One Health
Commission.
Dr Adu noted that it
was in the best interest of human beings to keep themselves and their animals
healthy because “animals transmit diseases to humans and humans also transmit
diseases to animals.”
Dr Garba Ahmed, the
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Emergency Centre for Transboundary
Animal Diseases (ECTAD) Country Team Leader, said the situation could be dire
if professionals in human, animal, food and environmental health did not come
together in the use of correct antimicrobials to avert the threat of
resistance.
Mr Joseph Kwami
Degley, the Ketu South Municipal Director of Health Services, underscored the
importance of a multi-sectoral collaboration to tackling human, animal and
environmental health to effectively deal with emerging diseases.
He cited the joint
effort of the Directorate, the Environmental Health and Veterinary Offices,
which had yielded some results in terms of early detection, reporting and
responding to diseases in the border municipality, suggesting that the One
Health approach was practicable and the way to go.
Mr Seji Saji, the
Deputy Director-General, National Disaster Management Organisation, admitted it
took the collaborative, multi sectoral, and transdisciplinary approach to put
the recent cases of A3 Influenza recorded in three senior high schools in the
Volta and Eastern regions under control and called for more of such
collaborations for desired results.
Mr Elliot Edem
Agbenorwu, Municipal Chief Executive for Ketu South, pledged government’s
commitment to the One Health approach to promote healthy living across the
country.
GNA
