Dr. Vipat Kuruchittham, SEAOHUN Executive Director; Dr. Vicente Y. Belizario Jr., UP CPH / TROPMED Philippines Dean and Centre Director; Dr. Michael L. Tee, PhilOHUN Chair; and Dr. Carmencita D. Padilla, UP Manila Chancellor giving their closing messages for the participants  of “Introduction to One Health”.

July 30, 2021 — The University of the Philippines Manila College of Public Health (CPH) and TROPMED Philippines piloted the first online course on One Health in the Philippines, “Introduction to One Health,” on May 4-6, 2021 for the capacity building of professionals from the human, animal, and environmental health sectors.

 “We had limited One Health initiatives in the past, and we hope that this short course will trigger a series of capacity building activities for academics and practitioners working in various health-related disciplines,” UP Manila Chancellor Carmencita Padilla stated.

More than 130 professionals from 15 regions across the country participated in the course, representing academic institutions, government agencies, and non-government organizations. The participants came from a wide range of disciplines such as medicine, allied health, veterinary medicine, agriculture, education, and social science.

Developed by the CPH SEAMEO TROPMED Regional Centre for Public Health, Hospital Administration, Environmental and Occupational Health (TROPMED Philippines) in collaboration with the Philippine One Health University Network (PhilOHUN), the initiative was supported by a grant from the Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN) under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) One Health Workforce – Next Generation (OHW-NG) Project. It aims to increase understanding of One Health fundamentals while planting the seeds of multidisciplinary collaboration in research, education, and policy development around One Health in the Philippines.

For three days, experts and practitioners from the human, animal, and environmental health sectors facilitated a series of sessions on the Fundamentals of One Health; Interrelatedness of Human, Animal, and Environmental Health; and Applications of One Health.

Dr. Michael L. Tee, UP Manila Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Development and PhilOHUN Chair, shared that the course inspired new ideas that may contribute to the development of new health-related legislation to address issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dr. Vicente Y. Belizario, Jr., Dean of the UP CPH and Centre Director of TROPMED Philippines in his closing statement as course coordinator, expressed that UP CPH/TROPMED Philippines will support other universities that will hold similar courses in the future and will guide the establishment of “U-2-U” (university to university) collaboration. The College/Centre together with PhilOHUN, SEAOHUN, USAID OHW-NG project, and Chevron will continue to offer courses in One Health to train future “champions” in different fields. 

This short course has set the stage for expanding the One Health network in the country, and scaling up and engaging more universities in offering the course as part of continuing education for health, allied health, and collaborating professionals will be the next step; thereby nurturing the seeds of collaboration towards growth to a full-fledged network for the advancement of the One Health agenda in the country.

Carlo Lumangaya & Emer Jose A.Faraon  |   Published in UP Manila Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 29