Goal 1

In most European countries, public and animal health laboratories including those that perform solely food safety and environmental research are in separate scientific areas, resulting in suboptimal use of resources and interaction between systems (databases, procedures, intervention strategies, etc.) and in redundancy in research activities. As a consequence, the current approach for prevention, detection and control of emerging zoonoses and AMR is not sufficiently efficient and should be improved. Both for public health, animal health and food safety, national reference laboratories for infectious agents/diseases and AMR are available. These institutes are part of one or more European networks, often financially supported by the European Commission (EC). However, most of these networks are established within their respective sectors (public health versus veterinary-food), largely driven by the European legislative framework. The strategies of both EFSA and ECDC aim towards an improved intersectoral integration (6,7). Accordingly, the EOHA aims to bring together these national reference institutions, to encourage integration of their scientific research activities, harmonization of their methodologies and sharing of data, and thus to enhance their joint capacity for prevention, detection and control by following a One Health approach. Expansion of collaborations towards environmental science institutions as well as academic establishments that perform reference functions within national structures for preparedness, detection and response, will allow essential extension of expertise, knowledge, capacity and capabilities.