Brunei Darussalam continues to advance the One Health vision with a national workshop to identify the zoonotic diseases of greatest concern and strengthen multisectoral preparedness. Building on the momentum of the National Bridging Workshop (NBW), 2025 which brought together over 60 experts across human, animal and environmental health sectors to enhance collaboration, this workshop marks a practical next step in turning shared plans into coordinated action.
A unified effort to identify priority threats
Organized by the Ministry of Health with support from World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Organisation for Animal Health, the One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization (OHZDP) Workshop included structured sessions on criteria development, scoring and action planning, enabling equal participation across all sectors in a transparent decision-making process. Using the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s OHZDP process, participants worked together to review evidence, agree on prioritization criteria and reach consensus on the diseases that require joint attention in Brunei Darussalam.
Linking with national priorities and strengthening prevention
The workshop aimed to bring strong alignment with Brunei Darussalam’s NBW Roadmap in which the OHZDP action plans are a follow up action to reinforce existing commitments and prevent duplication of effort. Participants also highlighted primary prevention as a crosscutting priority, emphasizing the importance of reducing risks at the animal–environment interface.
For the first time, environmental agencies took on a more central role, strengthening the integration of environmental determinants into zoonotic disease prevention and control, an area also recognised in the NBW discussions and reinforced through the OHZDP’s multisectoral approach.
A clearer path forward for One Health action
By the end of the workshop, there was an agreement on a prioritized list of zoonotic diseases and concrete next steps for multisectoral implementation were agreed. The process also strengthened national capacity, with trained facilitators now able to lead future prioritization exercises independently.
With a sharper focus on priority diseases and reinforced collaboration across sectors, Brunei Darussalam is taking confident steps toward a safer and more resilient future, protecting the health of its people, animals and environment.