(as prepared for delivery)

• Your Excellency, Tann Phannara, Director of General Directorate of Animal Health and Production, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
• Dr. Ly Sovann, Director of Cambodia Communicable Disease Control Department, Ministry of Health
• Representative of Ministry of Environment
• KOICA representative
• Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my great pleasure to join this celebration of the One Health Workforce project. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Korea International Cooperation Agency, KOICA, for funding this activity.

The achievements we will review today could not be realized without the technical support of the Southeast Asia One Health University Network, the collaboration of participating Cambodian universities, key government institutions, and one Health partners.

As you know - our world is becoming more and more interconnected. Increased international trade and travel bring us into close contact with disease outbreak areas and animals, to which we are not routinely exposed. This interaction can increase the potential outbreak of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases among human populations. The threats posed by such outbreaks should be a global wake-up call for collective actions to mitigate this escalating problem.

To fight emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, we need a One Health workforce that can coordinate across human, animal, and environmental health sectors to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats. We hope that today’s workshop will be an opportunity to discuss and develop the next action plan for One Health Workforce of Cambodia, which will lead the cross-sectoral and inter-agency collaboration that can address those threats.

There are already positive steps towards this goal. The establishment of the Cambodia One Health University Network – or CAMBOHUN – is one such step. I would like to congratulate the Prekleap National College of Agriculture, the University of Health Sciences, and the Royal University of Agriculture on this achievement. How can CAMBOHUN collaborate with government agencies and other partners to enhance the skills of national trainers, faculty members, in-service and pre-service health professionals to be ready to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats? I encourage everyone here to have that discussion.

I would like to thank you for spending your valuable time at today’s workshop. Your contribution is critical to develop the Cambodia One Health Workforce plan for improving Cambodia’s ability to prevent, detect and respond to the infectious disease threats. 

I wish you a successful workshop!

Thank you.