The USAID One Health Workforce (OHW) project aims to improve capacity to prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease threats in Vietnam. The project focuses on strengthening training and educational programs using an interdisciplinary approach, known as One Health. As part of its support in Vietnam, the project recently helped Hanoi University of Public Health (HUPH), Vietnam’s leading teaching and research institution for public health, develop the course “One Health Approach to Emerging and Re-emerging Zoonotic Diseases.” This course will train public health professionals to work in an interdisciplinary environment to effectively detect and prevent emerging threats such as antimicrobial resistance, avian influenza and other infectious diseases at the interface of animals, humans and the environment. In March, this course received accreditation from tropEd, an international network for global health higher education as an assurance of its training quality. The tropEd accreditation also brings opportunities for the course to be delivered to international students.

So what? As zoonotic diseases have been an important public health challenge in Vietnam and other countries in the region, the course will educate One Health workers with necessary technical skills and competencies to manage an infectious disease outbreak on a global scale.