Journalists Association Against AIDS (JournAIDS) has expressed the need for the country to invest in One Health Initiative, a global approach aimed at designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.

One Health initiative was designed with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes by recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.

JournAIDS Programme Manager Dingaan Mithi, said One Health approach can help the country to prepare effectively in cases of emergency of both pandemics and extreme weather events at once.

“Policies in Malawi are fragmented. You have a set of different policies in health, environment and climate change.

These policies don’t speak to each other and that’s why One Health initiative is critical in bringing all these aspects together to form what we call One Health,” he said.

He made the remarks in Blantyre during a media science café on Covid 19 and pandemic prevention, preparedness and response which was organized by JournAIDS in partnership with AVAC, a US based global advocacy organization working on HIV and other diseases.

One of the speakers at the café, Patrick Ken Kalonde, a PHD researcher at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine under Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust (MLW) said the country should also invest more in technologies such as Geographical Information System (GIS) which uses equipment such as drones to highlight specific hotspot areas which need more interventions during the period of pandemics and other diseases including malaria.

He said GIS can help in mapping and doing early warning for pandemic prevention and it saves resources and time, and there is need for government to have its own GIS team.