One Health Framework for Zoonotic Disease Prevention Training Course

Course overview

Zoonotic disease events rarely stay within one service boundary. A suspected anthrax case, rabies exposure, avian influenza signal or foodborne outbreak can require human health surveillance, veterinary investigation, laboratory confirmation, environmental assessment, risk communication and local authority action at the same time. When these functions use different case definitions, reporting routes and decision thresholds, critical information is delayed or missed. This course equips practitioners to establish practical One Health arrangements that turn multi-sector evidence into coordinated prevention and response decisions.

Participants work through the One Health framework as an operational method rather than a policy statement. They map human, animal and environmental stakeholders; analyse zoonotic transmission pathways; align surveillance indicators; design joint event-based and indicator-based surveillance flows; and apply risk assessment methods to prioritise interventions. The course also covers interagency governance, data-sharing protocols, outbreak investigation coordination, laboratory interfaces, antimicrobial resistance considerations and risk communication for affected communities. Participants use WHO International Health Regulations, WOAH guidance and FAO surveillance resources to connect local action with national preparedness requirements.

Instruction combines facilitated technical sessions with a continuing zoonotic outbreak scenario. Teams examine surveillance extracts, construct a transmission pathway map, identify information gaps, develop a joint risk assessment and prepare an integrated prevention plan. Each participant leaves with a workplace-ready One Health Zoonotic Disease Prevention Action Plan, including a stakeholder map, surveillance improvement priorities, escalation triggers, governance arrangements and a 90-day implementation schedule.

The course is designed for public health, veterinary, environmental health, laboratory and emergency-management professionals who already contribute to communicable disease control and need a repeatable way to work across sectors. It is equally valuable to managers responsible for strengthening preparedness, meeting external evaluation recommendations or reducing the operational risk created by fragmented zoonotic disease surveillance.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map human, animal and environmental stakeholders using a One Health governance matrix
• Construct zoonotic transmission pathway diagrams to identify prevention and control points
• Apply a joint qualitative risk assessment to rank zoonotic hazards and intervention priorities
• Design integrated indicator-based and event-based surveillance workflows for a priority zoonosis
• Create cross-sector case definitions, reporting thresholds and escalation triggers
• Draft a data-sharing protocol covering ownership, access, confidentiality and reporting timelines
• Coordinate a multi-agency outbreak investigation plan using defined roles and laboratory interfaces
• Produce a 90-day One Health Zoonotic Disease Prevention Action Plan for a workplace setting

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Public Health Officers — who need to coordinate zoonotic surveillance and response with animal and environmental services
• Veterinary Epidemiologists — who must connect animal health signals with human health risk decisions
• Environmental Health Practitioners — who investigate exposure settings, food systems, vectors and environmental drivers
• Communicable Disease Control Managers — who need defensible cross-sector preparedness and escalation arrangements
• Laboratory and Surveillance Managers — who align specimen pathways, diagnostic capacity and data reporting across agencies
• Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Risk Managers — who integrate zoonotic threats into multi-agency contingency plans

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in public health, veterinary services, environmental health, laboratory surveillance, epidemiology or emergency preparedness. They should understand basic concepts such as incidence, prevalence, case definition, surveillance, outbreak investigation and risk factors, and be able to interpret simple tables or line lists in Excel. Experience of a local or national disease-reporting system is useful. No advanced statistics, GIS expertise, programming, veterinary qualification or prior formal One Health training is required. Participants should bring a laptop with spreadsheet software if attending online or if they wish to work on their own planning materials.

Training methodology

The instructor leads short technical briefings followed by structured application to a multi-sector zoonotic disease scenario. Participants work with surveillance line lists, event reports, stakeholder maps and risk-ranking templates, using facilitated group exercises to reconcile human, animal and environmental evidence. Case discussions examine operational decisions such as when to escalate a signal, how to share data lawfully and which control measures to prioritise. Each day adds a component to an individual workplace action plan, which participants refine through peer review and instructor feedback on the final day.

Course outline

Day 1: Operationalising the One Health framework

• One Health principles as an operating model for zoonotic disease prevention
• Human-animal-environment interfaces and common zoonotic transmission routes
• Roles of public health, veterinary, environmental and laboratory services
• WHO International Health Regulations obligations relevant to zoonotic events
• WOAH notification principles and animal health intelligence
• Stakeholder mapping using influence, mandate and information-flow analysis
• Governance structures for joint planning, coordination and accountability

Workshop: Participants create a One Health stakeholder and information-flow map for a selected zoonotic disease scenario.

Day 2: Zoonotic hazard assessment and surveillance

• Hazard identification for endemic, emerging and re-emerging zoonoses
• Transmission pathway mapping from reservoir to human exposure
• Qualitative likelihood and consequence scoring methods
• Risk-ranking matrices for prevention and surveillance prioritisation
• Indicator-based surveillance across human and animal health systems
• Event-based surveillance, rumour verification and signal triage
• Surveillance sensitivity, timeliness, representativeness and data-quality measures

Workshop: Teams complete a joint risk assessment and rank three zoonotic hazards using likelihood, consequence and feasibility criteria.

Day 3: Data integration and early warning

• Cross-sector case definitions and compatible data fields
• Line-list structure for human cases, animal events and exposure investigations
• Data-sharing agreements, confidentiality controls and access permissions
• Reporting thresholds and escalation decision rules
• Laboratory specimen referral pathways and diagnostic confirmation interfaces
• FAO EMA-i+ functions for animal disease event reporting
• QGIS mapping of cases, animal events and environmental exposure locations

Workshop: Participants design an integrated surveillance workflow with a minimum dataset, reporting timeline and escalation trigger for a simulated event.

Day 4: Coordinated prevention and outbreak response

• Joint outbreak investigation objectives and incident management roles
• Field investigation sequencing across human, animal and environmental settings
• Exposure assessment and source attribution hypotheses
• Control measures for reservoirs, vectors, food systems and occupational exposure
• Antimicrobial resistance considerations in One Health prevention planning
• Risk communication for farmers, clinicians, food handlers and affected communities
• After-action review methods and corrective-action tracking

Workshop: Groups run a tabletop response to an escalating zoonotic outbreak and produce an incident coordination and control-measures brief.

Day 5: Building an implementable One Health prevention plan

• Selecting priority interventions from risk-assessment findings
• Defining prevention objectives, outputs, owners and deadlines
• Developing surveillance improvement indicators and performance targets
• Resource mapping for staffing, laboratory capacity and field operations
• Interagency memorandum and standard operating procedure components
• Monitoring implementation through review meetings and dashboard measures
• Presenting a business case for One Health preparedness investment

Workshop: Participants finalise and present a 90-day One Health Zoonotic Disease Prevention Action Plan for instructor and peer review.

Tools & standards covered

WHO International Health Regulations (2005), WOAH Terrestrial Animal Health Code, FAO EMA-i+, QGIS

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions