La Rioja presents the four lines of action of its One Health strategy

The community government is working on a protocol against avian flu and will update its prevention plan for diseases transmitted by arthropods.

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The Department of Health and Social Policies of the Government of La Rioja works to imbue the health policies that are applied in this community with the strategy One Healthwhich involves “coordination and joint work of different specialists such as doctors, veterinarians, pharmacists, biologists and other non-health professionals such as computer scientists or engineers,” stressed today the Deputy Minister of Health and Socio-Sanitary Policies, José Antonio Oteo, who has advanced that in Within the framework of this strategy, the Government of La Rioja is working on a protocol against avian flu and updating its plan for the prevention of diseases transmitted by arthropods.

José Antonio Oteo and the general director of Public Health, Consumption and Care, Eva Martínez, presented this Tuesday, October 15, at a press conference, the main measures of the Government of La Rioja within the framework of the strategy One Health (One Health), coinciding with the celebration of the day hosted by the Biomedical Research Center of La Rioja: “One Health in all policies”, with the collaboration of Pfizer.

Four strategic lines

Oteo has summarized the joint approach to this strategy in four lines: coordination between administrations, with health professional associations and with other entities, such as the University; active search for infectious agents and their vectors with epidemic potential and fight against antibiotic resistance; updating clinical action and epidemiological surveillance protocols, including food safety and process adaptation; and promotion of citizen co-responsibility.

In this sense, he has highlighted the collaborative processes carried out by different laboratories (Seris, Cibir, Regional Laboratory of Agriculture and Livestock), and the external collaboration of the laboratory of the University of La Rioja. Coordination and a fluid flow of information are being achieved and information and alert systems are being improved. Oteo has pointed out that one of the best examples of this task is the development of a plan to combat antibiotic resistance in La Rioja, with actions in Specialized care, Primary care, social health care and dentistry.

This plan is coordinated with the same program to rationalize the use of antibiotics that is carried out in agriculture and livestock and with the resistance research units of the University of La Rioja and Cibir. In this coordination, we have the help of the associations of pharmacists, veterinarians, doctors, dentists and stomatologists. In addition, basic research and clinical trials on infectious diseases, awareness campaigns and training for healthcare workers are carried out.

A One Health coordination commission has been established, which meets at least once a month, attended by the vice-counselor, the general directors of Pharmacy and Public Health, representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural and Environment World Environment, from the University of La Rioja and the PROA coordinator of the Rioja Health Service.

Search for infectious agents with epidemic potential

The second line of work of the Government of La Rioja is the search for infectious agents with epidemic potential. In fact, there is a great structure to develop it with the CIBIR Special Pathogens Laboratory and the Regional Laboratory. With all the knowledge that has been generated from La Rioja with international recognition, the Plan for prevention, surveillance and control of diseases transmitted by arthropod vectors in La Rioja has been updated this year and will see the light of day in the coming weeks. But surveillance is not only carried out on arthropods, other emerging agents that are subsidiary to intervention are also investigated after early detection.

In this coordination work, the Regional Agriculture and Livestock Laboratory monitors, among other influenza viruses, the avian flu virus, which many experts consider the greatest candidate to cause the next pandemic, since it has jumped from wild birds to farms. poultry and, recently, a broad base of mammals, including dairy cows, which have in turn infected farm cats and farmers.

Thus, the third line in which we are working is to update the early clinical detection processes. Given the risk of avian flu, the Government of La Rioja has been working for months on an action protocol for contact with birds or other animals with suspected or confirmed influenza virus infection. This protocol is activated if the flu virus is detected in animals or in the Agriculture and Livestock Laboratory. In addition, when a farm-related patient goes to a health center with certain symptoms (fever, acute respiratory or neurological problems, conjunctivitis or diarrhea), the computer program will send an alert to the health professional. This year, the anti-flu campaign encourages vaccination for people with direct occupational exposure to animals on farms or farms or to wildlife, veterinarians and environmental agents.

The last line in which work is being done is that of the co-responsibility of citizens with the strategy One Health. Thus, this concept has already been included in the latest revision of the manifesto of the Rioja Alliance for Health, which already has more than 400 members. Furthermore, the Government of La Rioja believes in prevention and in this sense takes advantage of events to spread this message, publishes educational materials or collaborates with the citizen science platform Mosquito Alert.