Course Details:
Eligibility:
Participants do not need any formal undergraduate and/or postgraduate educational requirements. However, participants should be currently operating in a relevant field including environment and wildlife management, public health, international trade, laboratory, economic, veterinary health, or as environmental officers and port health professionals.
Course Description:
This short course will seek to develop critical competencies in the scientific and practical understanding of biosecurity implications associated with wildlife hunting, wildlife trade and consumption and zoonotic disease transmission in public health. These competencies will range from understanding the basic terminology, the critical nature of these human activities, the negative impacts on animal and human health and the environment and the potential interventions to mitigate against these impacts. The hunting, trading and consumption of wildlife has been implicated in the genesis of the current COVID-19 pandemic and also other previous major infectious disease outbreaks, agricultural, international trade, wildlife population decreases and previous biosecurity breaches. In this way, the risk of the emergence of a novel infectious disease emerging from the Caribbean is real given similar social and cultural practices of wildlife hunting, trade and consumption to those in China. Hence, this course will seek to facilitate participants’ understanding of what is really out there and how to stop it.
Course Content
- Overview of Wildlife, Infectious Diseases and One Health
- Public health, animal health and economic implications of these wildlife associated activities
- Identifying systematic Wildlife Zoonotic Infection Risks
- PESTHEEL & One Health Approaches to Zoonoses & Pandemics
- Regional Mitigation Strategies against Zoonotic Transmission Risks
- Foster participants’ understanding of the public health, tourism, economic, trade and animal health threats posed by wildlife hunting, wildlife trade and wildlife consumption in the Caribbean.
- Facilitate participants’ practical exploration of mitigation strategies to minimize the impacts of these activities in their day-to-day professional job execution.
Supporting Partners:
