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Representatives from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) institutions and member states have met in Accra to discuss ways to implement the One Health (OH) approach in the ECOWAS region to fight epidemic diseases.
The annual ECOWAS One Health technical meeting is aimed at discussing, among others, practical strategies to promote harmonised indicators and data sharing across sectors and member states, identify gaps and good practices in national One Health surveillance systems, establish a Regional One Health Surveillance Community of Practice (CoP); and validate the 2026 Annual
Work Plan of the ECOWAS Regional One Health Secretariat.
The OH approach promotes coordinated action among human, animal, and environmental health sectors to strengthen the region’s resilience against health emergencies.
Meeting
The four-day meeting was organised by the Regional One Health Secretariat and supported by GIZ and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
It was on the theme “Surveillance of Priority Zoonotic Diseases as an Entry Point to Operationalise the One Health Approach in the ECOWAS Region”.
At the opening ceremony in Accra on Monday, November 10, the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, urged West African countries to unite, strengthen local capacity, and develop homegrown solutions to public health challenges.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Professor Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, he charged participants to develop a practical checklist of actions to know what they have achieved, which countries couldn’t, and why they didn’t achieve it.
Mr Akandoh said that the country was already applying the OH approach by strengthening cooperation between the GHS and the Veterinary Services Department.
He cited the recent HPV vaccination exercise as an example of an effective local solution driven entirely by national coordination, working closely with the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service.
“We don’t need external people to tell us to vaccinate our children against cervical cancer. “We should solve our problems now so our children won’t inherit them,” the Health Minister said.
He gave a firm assurance that the country was ready to face any future pandemic, since daily emergency updates were shared among West African Director-Generals, as well as weekly regional Zoom briefings to track threats.
Mr Akandoh indicated that every district in the country now had an emergency response and surveillance team, supported by a national emergency unit of specialists.
The Health Minister added that the country is actively monitoring and managing ongoing health concerns such as Mpox, which he said was now under control.
The Executive Director of the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control, Dr Mamadou Diarrassouba, said the One Health approach encouraged cross-sectoral collaboration and sustainable solutions to improve well-being and protect our ecosystems.
He said ECOWAS was committed to strengthening the policy framework, mobilising increased financial support, developing technical capacities and fostering regional networking.
The Coordinator of the Regional Pandemic Prevention Programme (RPPP), GIZ, Mrs Fatima Zanna Husseini, expressed the commitment of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, through GIZ, to partner with the ECOWAS Commission to support the establishment and implementation of the One Health Plan.
The representative of the Delegation of the EU to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Dr Anthony Ayeke, also expressed the EU's support for regional health security and the OH approach, and mentioned ongoing and future initiatives, including the EU support to public health institutes and the EU digital health initiative to strengthen data systems.
