Port Blair, July 6: As part of the celebration of World Zoonoses Day, a Symposium on the theme ‘Preparedness for future epidemic/pandemic lessons learned from COVID-19’ was conducted by RMRC, Port Blair in association with DHS and Dept of AH&VS, A&N Administration today in the auditorium of RMRC. The symposium witnessed participation of Doctors from DHS, AH&VS, ANIIMS, Staff of E&F, CIARI and RMRC, Port Blair and faculty from JNRM Port Blair besides representatives from UNDP, India through online and offline modes.

On this occasion, Dr. Eknath Chakurkar, Director, CIARI was the Mentor.  The topic of discussion was on ‘Zoonotic Diseases in A&N Islands’. The speakers were Dr. Avijit Roy, DDH, Dr. KA Naveen, Director AH&VS, Dr. Vivin Vincent, HoD Community Medicine, ANIIMS, Dr. P Vijaychari, Director, RMRC and Dr. Debashish Battacharya, Senior Scientist, CIARI.

In his inaugural address, Dr. Eknath Chakurkar insisted on the ‘One Health Approach to Health’ where he emphasized that all the stakeholders must come to a common platform to share the data on Zoonoses and to take early preventive measures to prevent and control the disease.

Detailed presentations and elaborate discussion on various aspects of Zoonoses among human and animal population and the need to identify areas of threat due to agriculture and transmission of zoonoses in these Islands were held. It was unanimously decided by the participants that a common platform must be established to achieve the target of ‘One Health Approach to Health’ and sharing of inter-departmental data to foresee any outbreak of zoonoses diseases in these Islands. The program concluded with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr. Rohit, Senior Project Officer, UNDP.