Defining Opportunities and Challenges in One Health Agency Management in Sri Lanka
Date
2020-02-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
Zoonotic infectious diseases continue to impact economic, public, animal, and environmental health globally. Developing countries are at an elevated risk for infectious zoonotic diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, leptospirosis, and rabies, and have significant challenges in addressing these diseases of socio-economic concern. A One Health approach has been increasingly adopted, due to the rise in awareness of the complex interactions of zoonotic diseases at the human-animal-environment interface. In 2011, The Sri Lanka Wildlife Health Centre (SLWHC) partnered with the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC) with the goal of improving detection and management of disease in Sri Lanka in wildlife as well as at the interface with livestock and human health. My project used an integrative interdisciplinary framework to identify current opportunities and challenges in the SLWHC. After a comprehensive literature review, key participant engagement, and discussion, interview questions were developed, and administered to government wildlife, public health, and agriculture staff. The interviews (n=34) assessed government and academic staff perceptions of existing communication and collaboration channels. This information was used to identify gaps and best practices regarding wildlife disease surveillance, and improvements for the SLWHC, within and between all of the participants and collaborators within the SLWHC. The interviews were conducted in July and August of 2015 and were adapted from the integrative interdisciplinary framework of the policy sciences. A common interest was established between participant groups, the desire to use an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to combine resources, knowledge, and personnel to detect, reduce, and prevent the incidence of zoonotic disease outbreaks in Sri Lanka. However, important differences were observed between participant groups with regard to potential opportunities to improve the SLWHC. Opportunities for the SLWHC included potential participant groups to be included, diseases and domestic/wildlife species that should be the focus of surveillance, and how communication should take place within and between participant groups. Co-developing an improved governance and collaborative approach for the SLWHC between relevant participants will help better build capacity to effectively detect and manage disease outbreaks that have significant socio-economic importance to the country.
Description
Keywords
Sri Lanka, zoonotic disease, interdisciplinary, collaborative, zoonotic disease, communication, policy sciences, framework
Citation
Degree
Master of Science (M.Sc.)
Department
Animal and Poultry Science
Program
Animal Science