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Why One Health approach is crucial for ASEAN's health architecture
One Health emphasizes the need for collaboration and coordination across different sectors, including public health, veterinary medicine, agriculture, and environmental sciences.
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Test of time: Residents of Pondok Ranggon subdistrict in East Jakarta take swab tests at the local community health center on July 5, 2021. The government intensified testing as COVID-19 infection cases were on the rise. (JP/P.J. Leo)
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orking under the theme “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth”, Indonesia has been making every effort to ensure progress in the human development sector to which it had committed when it assumed the ASEAN chairmanship of 2023.
Particularly in the health sector, the adoption of the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on One Health Initiative at the 42nd ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara, last month marked a new milestone in the effort to create a more-resilient health security architecture for the Southeast Asian region.
Putting a strong focus on building a robust regional health security architecture seems a natural continuation to what the country had previously prioritized during its Group of 20 presidency of 2022, that is, strengthening the global health architecture. And, that is rightly so.
For one reason, Southeast Asia is a diverse region known for its rapid economic growth, cultural and biodiversity richness. However, it is also no stranger to notable emerging infectious diseases, zoonotic outbreaks and environmental challenges. Geographically, the member countries’ proximity to one another in this region makes it even more vulnerable to public health threats posed by infectious disease outbreaks.
To effectively address the complexity of these issues, ASEAN, under the chairmanship of Indonesia, has been moving in the right direction by prioritizing the adoption and implementation of the One Health approach.
In fact, a number of regional initiatives and mechanisms aimed to strengthen the region’s health security capacity through the One Health approach have been put in place far before 2023. However, the adoption of the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on One Health Initiative signifies a substantial elevation of the One Health approach and implementation to the highest level of priority in public health for the ASEAN member states.
At present, One Health has been anchored in ASEAN’s highest political level, thereby providing it with the much-needed cachet and urgency to be implemented in earnest across the ASEAN member states in a more sustainable and cohesive fashion.
