September 25, 2026

Press Release

For Immediate Release

A Global Call to Action from the international One Health* Community

World leaders are currently gathering in New York for the 81st UN General Assembly for discussions critical to the global health agenda. Today (25th September 2026), a High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response is taking place, aiming to adopt a new political declaration to guide strategies for preventing and addressing future pandemics and public health emergencies.

Against this important backdrop, a global Call to Action that was launched at the 9th World One Health Congress (WOHC2026) in Lisbon, Portugal, invites support to raise a collective voice for the recognition, financing and implementation of One Health approaches.

The 9th World One Health Congress convened September 4-7, 2026 in Lisbon bringing together over 1300 experts dedicated to advancing One Health science and policy.

Over four days the Congress, overseen by the Global One Health Community (globalohc.org), featured presentations, panel discussions and workshops on One Health topics such as emerging zoonotic diseases that pass between animals and humans, biosecurity, food systems, antimicrobial resistance, vector-borne diseases, innovative technologies and health, the science-policy interface, and more.

This year, on September 6, a Joint Statement and Call to Action was launched, led by the Global One Health Community and the international One Health Commission (onehealthcommission.org), with a shared promise to advocate for One Health and urging global leaders to take actions to fully integrate the One Health framework into all decision making.

This type of Collective Action by the global One Health movement has only been invoked once before from the 8th WOHC in 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa.

As of September 24, 2026 over 230 Individuals and 58 Organizations from around the world had signed on in support of this year's Call. Signatories can be viewed here.

This call to action will support global One Health advocacy efforts by demonstrating the strength of momentum behind this movement, helping to drive further One Health collaboration, financing & implementation. It will also provide a lens through which to assess progress made, at future meetings.

This Call to Action will remain open indefinitely and supportive Individuals and Organizations are invited to join the Call. https://tinyurl.com/OH-CollectiveVoice2026

A ONE HEALTH CALL TO ACTION

We continue to urge world leaders, national governments, intergovernmental bodies, and relevant global conferences to meet the agreed targets of International Conventions for health, sustainability and equity; fund One Health research and implement actionable policies through a One Health lens; and, formally recognize that integrating human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health is vital to global health security, disease prevention, and resilience.



Beyond symbolic acknowledgement, we call on decision-makers to include One Health principles in national, regional, and inter-governmental negotiations, thereby translating these into concrete equitable and inclusive laws and regulations, cross-sectoral budgets, and binding commitments across all areas of health, health security, climate, animal, ecosystem, and environmental policy.

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*About One Health

One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and inter-dependent. The approach mobilizes multiple sectors, disciplines and communities at varying levels of society to work together to foster well-being and tackle threats to health and ecosystems, while addressing the collective need for clean water, energy and air, safe and nutritious food, taking action on climate changes and contributing to sustainable development. The One Health paradigm forges co-equal, all-inclusive collaborations between animal, plant, environmental and human health arenas, i.e. chemical, engineering and social scientists, dentists, nurses, agricultural/horticulturalists and food producers, wildlife and environmental health specialists and many other related disciplines that fall under its purview.

Contact:

Cheryl Stroud, cstroud@onehealthcommission.org

Danielle Rooke, danielle.rooke@globalohc.org

Please share this message widely!

This message is shared by the One Health Commission (OHC) with its international One Health Community of over 22,000.



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