The 17th Meeting of the East Asia Wildlife Health Network was held on September 2, 2025, with 22 participants.
There were two parts to the agenda. The first was a series of presentations from the region on national networking, chaired by Dr Manabu Onuma.
The second part of the meeting was a plenary discussion using Mentimeter®, moderated by Dr Hyunjun Cho. Participants discussed various aspects of a national network: whether they had a network in their country/territory or not, its function, members, modality and activities. Key points of the discussion:
- Most members already have a network, often established more than 10 years ago. The networks were all established by government representatives, mostly now maintained by the government, and receiving regular support from the government. Advocacy often revolves around One Health, partnership, with productive outputs used to highlight the benefits.
- Network size varied greatly, with some national networks being informal and comprising around 6-10 agencies, while others involved working with several hundred or even thousands of stakeholders or individuals. Various stakeholders are included in the networks.
- Communication with network members is usually either by email or face-to-face, with social media important in a few networks. Network meetings are often hybrid (some people on site and some online), or a mixture of online and in-person meetings. Most networks communicate with members twice a year, some more frequently.
- Networks conduct many different activities including information sharing, conferences, capacity building, and research discussions. Training topics include sample collection and laboratory diagnosis. The top priorities in the region are high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) and African swine fever (ASF).
The meeting ended with a brief discussion on WOAH events and reporting of wildlife disease information before Dr Onuma closed.
It was decided that the topic for the 18th meeting will be scabies, and will be held on December 10, 2025.
