FAZD Center, CEEZAD will represent One Health Initiative at international symposium on zoonotic diseases
Texas A&M University’s FAZD Center will serve as a co-representative of the One Health Initiative at the Farm Foundation’s international symposium on zoonoses Sept. 23-24 in Washington, D.C.
Known formally as the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense, the FAZD Center will share the distinction with Kansas State University’s Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD).
The FAZD Center and CEEZAD are co-leaders of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Excellence for research into high-consequence foreign animal and emerging/zoonotic diseases.
Each center will present a poster under the common theme of “One Health-One Medicine-One Environment,” applying One Health principles to the challenges posed by zoonotic diseases, which are transmissible between animals and humans.
At least 60 percent of all human pathogens originate in animals. The most dangerous of these animal diseases pose catastrophic risks to human health, livestock health and the national agricultural economy, which provides about 13 percent of all U.S. jobs as well as $1 trillion in annual U.S. economic activity.
In addition, the FAZD Center and CEEZAD are among the sponsors of the symposium, “Zoonoses: Understanding the Animal Agriculture and Human Health Connection.”
The event will examine the connections between zoonotic diseases, animal agriculture and human health. The symposium targets the broad cross-section of professionals involved in the prevention and management of zoonotic diseases: public health officials, epidemiologists, virologists, veterinarians, agriculture producer groups and media representatives, particularly those responsible for health, science and agricultural coverage.
The One Health Initiative is a movement to forge co-equal, all inclusive collaborations between physicians, veterinarians, and other scientific-health and environmentally related disciplines. Supporters include the American Medical Association, American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). Additionally, more than 535 prominent scientists, physicians and veterinarians worldwide have endorsed the initiative.