Cuba promotes One Health concept

The importance of adopting more comprehensive practices for a universal health paradigm marked the opening today of the 1st National Congress "One Health", in the context of the 5th International Convention Cuba Health 2025, at the Havana Convention Center in Havana.

The opening was attended by Jose Angel Portal Miranda, Cuba's Minister of Public Health (Minsap), as well as the heads of Science, Technology and Environment, Communications, Higher Education, Education and Agriculture, along with representatives of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, Civil Defense and other public and social institutions linked to the issue.

Ileana Morales Suarez, Director of Science and Innovation of Minsap, referred to the need to face cross-cutting approaches and global responses to immense challenges for human and animal health and the preservation of the environment, among other dimensions to be taken into account for the welfare of people and communities.

Morales Suarez recalled the recent lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic in proving the vulnerabilities of global health systems, the relevance of the development of science in terms of the health sector and the uncertainty of the international panorama in the short and medium term due to the possible spread of new threats.

Cuba has the best conditions to deploy the concept of a single health based on the State's will to advance in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and the humanistic vocation of the training of its health personnel, she said.

"One Health" is a comprehensive and unifying approach assumed by the United Nations and whose objective is to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.

In this way, it uses the close and interdependent links that exist between these fields to establish new methods of disease surveillance and control and constitutes a fundamental tool for building health policies that promote a sustainable and equitable future for all species and ecosystems.

Cuba Health 2025 will feature a broad scientific program until April 25 with 36 events to discuss public health management models at the international level, with emphasis on the adoption of a comprehensive strategy based on the perspective of inclusive health.