The One Health concept remains a very abstract concept for most university students in Uganda and Africa at large. From personal experience, I have found myself search for its meaning on the internet over and over again without fully grasping its true definition. But what does One Health mean, especially for a student like myself? The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines One Health as a collaborative, multi-sectorial and trans-disciplinary approach –working at the local, regional, national and global levels with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment.
In my own understanding in the capacity of a health professional student, this means that One Health can only be achieved when as humans we acknowledge the fact that by destroying our environment for instance, we not only destroy the lives of the animals that directly depend on the environment but also destroy our own lives as well. The definition also means that we must collaborate irrespective of our educational backgrounds and levels towards this common goal. And as students from different programs and universities, we must commit to bettering our understanding of the common One Health issues in our different communities like zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety, food security and environmental contamination, and ultimately finding innovative and practical solutions to tackling these challenges.
Important to note is that when we commit to finding practical solutions to the different one earth challenges in our communities, we contribute to the achievement of most of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for example SDGs 1(, 2, 3 ,6, 7,12,13, 14, 15 and 17 by 2030. Finding solutions to the pressing One Health issues also means that we are in our own ways contributing to achievement of Global Health Security (GHS) and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) not only in Africa but also globally.
As we celebrate One Health Day 2021, under the theme ‘When we protect one, We help protect all’ I invite my fellow students and professionals alike to join me in advocating for protection of our environment. As humans, we have been so selfish in the hunt for wealth and to fulfill our different needs; in the process destroying the environment that feeds us, our children and our animals. Destruction of the environment has caused a number of challenges but important to note the disastrous changes in climate that has seen many lives of humans, plants and animals lost, it has also caused wide spread poverty and hunger and consequently sabotaging the achievement of the SDGs.
I can therefore state without fear of contradiction that; ‘When we protect the environment, we help protect all’.