Your Excellencies Associate Professor Dr. Phouthone Mouangpak, Vice Minister of Health and Dr. Bounkhouang Khambounheuang, Vice Minister of Agriculture and Forestry,
Mr Nasar Hayat, FAO Representative to Lao PDR,
International partners,
Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a great pleasure being here with colleagues from the veterinary and agriculture sector, as well as public health.
Many of you here in Thalat today were at the Lao Plaza Hotel yesterday to launch Lao’s National Strategic Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, or AMR. AMR is a prime example of a challenge that cuts across the work of our sectors, and is in fact a key priority for all of us here today. Many antimicrobial resistant organisms can be carried by and cause disease in both humans and animals, and further, how both sectors use and misuse antimicrobials is a key driver of resistance. So it is clear that we need to work together to tackle this challenge.
But our objective today is not just to identify common threats – though that is clearly a key part of it. It is also about identifying common solutions and areas where our sectors can support each other.
As a former Director of Public Health from a country with a big agricultural sector, I am very aware that what happens in the veterinary and agricultural sectors can have a big impact on human health, and vice versa. I am also conscious that throughout human history almost all new pandemic threats have started off as animal diseases.
An outbreak of a new type of avian influenza for example can pose a huge threat to human health. Infected birds may be able to pass the virus on to people who are in close contact with them or their body fluids, and this virus may develop the ability to pass from person to person.
But of course these outbreaks also threaten the country’s agriculture sector. For example export markets for chicken meat, eggs and live birds can suddenly disappear. Controlling the outbreak using culls or vaccination is hugely expensive for the Ministry of Agriculture. And last, but by no means least, farmers can lose their poultry flocks. They may also lose their livelihoods if compensation is not paid quickly, with major and long lasting impacts on families and communities.
Because of these broader social and economic impacts, even diseases that cannot infect humans, like the current African Swine Fever spreading across this Region, still pose a threat to the broader health and wellbeing of families and communities. This means that effective control of these animal health threats isn’t just in the interests of the animal health sector, it is in the interests of all of us.
We also of course cannot lose sight of the fact that animal health impacts, and risk of disease spread from animals to people, does not only occur in agricultural settings. Wildlife can also be a reservoir for, and heavily impacted by, a range of important diseases. And history has also shown that human activities like hunting can be an important way for these diseases to spread from animals to humans.
Multi-sectoral working is about collaboration and mutual support, and understanding shared interests. It is also about sharing knowledge and expertise between the health, agriculture and animal health sectors represented here today. And of course great as it is to see everyone here for this meeting, actual collaboration is not this annual event. It is the joined up work that individuals and organisations do around the country every day, working together to protect the health and livelihoods of Lao people, and the quality of our environment.
Thank you. KOP CHAI LAI LAI