One Health - All Ireland for Europe Surveillance

This project aims to develop a framework that will support a sustainable long-term, multi-disciplinary approach to One Health surveillance activities on the island of Ireland. The overall objective is to enhance the capacities of competent authorities in charge of both human and animal health and combine them with relevant academic expertise. The specific objectives of this proposal are to (1) establish an All-Ireland One Health network across all disciplines (WP1), (2) build a coordinated surveillance programme for animal and human Influenza viruses (WP2), (3) re-evaluate the status of tick-borne encephalitis virus (WP3), (4) establish an integrated surveillance system for rapid pathogen Y discovery (WP4) and (5) evaluate and improve current IT surveillance systems for zoonotic pathogens (WP5). These objectives will be achieved by building upon and enhancing existing collaborations, networks and surveillance activities on the island of Ireland, including National and Regional Zoonosis Committees and All-Ireland surveillance programmes. Tissues collected from livestock and wildlife as part of other unrelated disease surveillance programmes will be used to assess the presence of the prioritised diseases and biobanked. Comparison of existing IT surveillance platforms in Ireland and other EU states will facilitate development of a coordinated All-Ireland IT system. The relevance of this project to the EU4Health call is in its focus on enhanced surveillance and capacity building. The All-Ireland approach is significant as it strengthens the EU's ability to respond to cross-border disease threats associated with the movement of people, animals and/or pathogens across the Irish land border.