The Institute from Zenica is the only representative of BiH and the region in the worldwide One Health Network – an INZ expert entrusted with international mentoring, which is ranked among the ten most successful in the world. The Institute for Health and Food Safety Zenica (INZ) is a part of the worldwide “One Health” network, and the only one in the region, since its internal organization represents the concept of “One Health” in practice.
In practice, this means that it acts as a combination of the Public Health Institute and the Veterinary Institute, and more recently the Institute for Plant Protection, and in the work combines knowledge, professionalism and topics in the field of health protection as a single concept.
This organization of our institution has shown and proved its purpose through the joint work of experts of different profiles, physicians, veterinarians, biologists, microbiologists, ecologists, food technology engineers, chemical engineers and others, to solve various problems that we face in our activities on a daily basis.
From last year, organized by INZ, for the first time in our region, was marked “One Health Day”, which is celebrated every year on November 3. INZ, within the framework of the expert conference “One Health in BiH”, presented a multisectoral team of INZ on topics “Brucellosis“, which will be shown months later, and this year, as the only real way and approach to the problem.
Recently, there has been an increase in the number of diseased people and animals with brucellosis, and it has become apparent that the solution to the problem can only be achieved by a multisectoral approach of experts of different profiles, as indicated by INZ’s expert team during 2018.
A pilot project in forty countries
These days, a mentoring pilot program at the international level has ended, with INZ participating over the past two years under the auspices of ISOHA (“International Student One Health Alliance”). ISOHA is an international organization that aims to bring together students worldwide interested in the connections between animal health, human health and environmental health.
ISOHA’s mission is to promote the One Health concept to student, irrespective of field of study. ISOHA will enable students to form associations with the aim of promoting One Health within their communities and contribute positively globally to research, education, and professional development.
In 2019, ISOHA launched a mentoring pilot program after a large number of mentors and students expressed interest in this type of education on the importance of the One Health Initiative.Ultimately, more than 230 students from 34 countries around the world were compared to more than 150 professionals from 41 different countries and with a wide range of experience including veterinarians, doctors, engineers and social scientists. Thanks to their hard work and dedication to the program, the interdisciplinary One Health networks have expanded worldwide.
INZ expert dr. Rusmir Goletic, an expert associate for veterinary public health and ecology, participated in this program as one of the mentors, to students – colleagues from the Netherlands / China and Bangladesh. He was mentor to dr. Masudul Islam from Bangladesh Army International University of Science & Technology, Bangladesh and Jiacheng Cai from Utrecht University – The Netherlands, who arrived there for an educational exchange from China (Utrecht University, Netherlands / China ).
On the list of the most successful
At the end of the program, ISOHA also relased a publication that featured some of the more successful mentors and trainees of this program (11 mentors and 15 students), among whom was Dr. Goletic.
– We have only positive impressions from the whole project. Each discussion and exchange of ideas was an additional impetus to the improvement of the concept. The cooperation of doctors in different fields already exists in the world, but now for the first time a concept and idea has been put under the “one name”, which leads to its improvement. In particular, each problem and situation is viewed from multiple angles by this concept, and thus the solution of the problem is faster and more efficient. One Health also teaches us how to bridge the gap between professionals of different profiles, such as between doctors and veterinarians. Only by acting together can we solve a problem before it occurs, that is, as they like to say in our region, “Better prevented than treated,” – Dr. Goletic points out.
He added that the importance of the One Health Initiative would come to light in some incident situations, but it is still much more important for scientists around the world to open their minds to other professionals, to work together to prevent incident situations.