The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Pacific Wildlife Health Network (PWHN) held its 4th meeting on the 11th May 2023. The meeting was attended by representatives from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and WOAH.
There were three main agenda points in the meeting:
- Updates from previous meeting and outline of nomination survey circulated to members.
- The meeting focused on the topic of Bat disease at the human-animal interface, selected by members of the network. The meeting featured two experts in bat health who were invited to deliver presentations outlined below:
- Keren Cox-Witton, from Wildlife Health Australia, spoke first, delivering a presentation titled “Australian bat lyssavirus: a One Health disease”.
- Andrew Breed, from the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry gave the second presentation titled “Emergence and epidemiology of henipaviruses”.
- Information exchange and discussion from participants noted the importance of early wildlife disease investigations and developing, maintaining, and utilising local and regional networks to inform investigations, including but not limited to local communities and ecologists.
The 5th meeting for the PWHN will be scheduled later in 2023 with a topic chosen from ideas previously put forward by participants.
Further information:
- During the 6th Cycle Training of WOAH Focal Points for Wildlife in Asia and the Pacific, there was a dedicated Regional Networking Workshop on 17 February 2023, during which the four WOAH sub-regional wildlife health networks (East Asia, the Pacific, South Asia and South-East Asia) met to strengthen wildlife health network across this region. During the workshop, each sub-regional network drafted a vision and a list of priorities, as well as compiled ideas on what they need from the region and what they can offer.
