One Health: joint framework for action published by five EU agencies

ECHA/NR/24/12

Helsinki, 7 May 2024 - Today, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), European Environment Agency (EEA), European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and European Medicines Agency (EMA) published a joint framework for action to strengthen cooperation to support the implementation of the One Health agenda in the European Union (EU). 

One Health recognises the complex interplay between human, animal and plant health, food safety, the climate crisis, and environmental sustainability. Implementing this approach across different sectors will be key to make the EU and its Member States better equipped to prevent, predict, detect, and respond to health threats. It will mitigate the impact and societal cost of such threats, or even prevent their emergence, while also helping to reduce human pressures on the environment and safeguarding key societal needs such as food security and access to clean air and water.

A cross-agency task force will work on implementing the joint framework for action over the next three years (2024-2026), focusing on five strategic objectives: strategic coordination, research coordination, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and joint inter-agency activities. This will ensure that the scientific advice provided by the agencies is increasingly integrated, that the evidence base for One Health is strengthened, and that the agencies are able to contribute with a common voice to the One Health agenda in the EU.

In November 2023, the five EU agencies that provide scientific advice on the environment, public health, and food safety topics issued a joint statement expressing their shared commitment to supporting the One Health agenda in Europe. 

On the occasion of the launch of the joint framework for action the Executive Directors of the five EU Agencies reinforced their commitment to the One Health approach in a joint video statement.