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
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