7th Meeting of South Asia Wildlife Health Network

South Asia Wildlife Health Network Meeting: Human-wildlife interactions

The members of the WOAH South Asia Wildlife Health Network held a special joint online meeting with the Middle East on the topic of “Human-wildlife interactions”.

This meeting was supported by the WOAH Regional Representation for Asia and the Pacific (RRAP) and the WOAH Regional Representation for the Middle East (RRME).

Two speakers were invited to discuss interactions between people and wildlife. There was time for questions to the speakers and for open discussion to share regional experiences.

• Abdelmalik Khalafalla, Biosecurity Expert and Veterinary Virologist at the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority will present on “Camel–Human Interface and Emerging Zoonoses (MERS-CoV)”.
• Dr Ganga Wijesinghe, Veterinarian at the Department of Wildlife Conservation, Sri Lanka presented on “Strengthening Joint Outbreak Investigations through a One Health Approach – Lessons from Sri Lanka”.

The meeting brought together over 20 participants, including representatives from four WOAH Members in South Asia and ten Members in the Middle East.
Interactive polling highlighted zoonotic disease transmission as the most commonly identified issue associated with human–wildlife interfaces, followed by livestock–wildlife interactions and disease transmission between wildlife and domestic animals. Participants also identified opportunities to strengthen the One Health approach, including improved cross-sectoral coordination, information sharing, joint surveillance, and outbreak investigation and response.

Date: Wednesday, 19 August 2026

Time: 9am Lebanon (EEST) / 3pm Japan (JST)

Photo credit: Dr Koichi Murata

Selected speakers and participants

Response from poll of participants