Overcoming Barriers to One Health Surveillance Implementation

The zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic renewed calls for establishing and improving One Health surveillance capabilities globally, yet a lack of universally recognized best practices and clear guidance on how to implement coordinated surveillance across multiple sectors has hindered progress. Without shared surveillance goals, multisectoral data sharing policies and standards, and interoperable tools to aid the establishment and implementation of coordinated surveillance using a One Health approach, many countries are left piecing together systems together without a way to measure success. We have identified 3 priority components that countries should consider addressing and publishing examples of in order to initiate and document examples of successful coordinated surveillance planning and implementation: (1) shared surveillance goals, (2) multisectoral data sharing policies and standards; and (3) interoperable tools. These 3 components could serve as building blocks for the development of regional and global minimal One Health data standards for collection, sharing, and use of multisectoral data to address health threats from a One Health collaborative approach that efficiently minimizes human, animal, and economic costs of epidemics such as COVID-19.