Making Food Safer in Palestine: A One Health Approach to Antimicrobial Resistance

Abstract

A One Health and transdisciplinary perspective, considering human-animal-environmental interfaces, is central to food safety as it embeds food production systems in their environmental, socio-economic, and public health context. Compared to frameworks that solely concentrate on specific aspects of food safety, integrated One Health approaches add value to improve human, animal, and environmental health. According to the World Health Organization, preventative measures that have been implemented to lower the prevalence of Campylobacter in live poultry have been linked to a corresponding drop in human cases. This highlights the importance of cross-sectoral cooperation and demonstrates how the complex socio-ecological system interacts. One Health pays particular attention to the interaction of food security, human health, and environmental sustainability rather than removing food systems from their context. This case study tries to find a critical methodology to foster food safety by better understanding the zoonotic foodborne illnesses transmission and their resistance to antimicrobials in socio-ecological systems like in Palestine. This project recommends urgently building a national surveillance system in Palestine to efficiently and sustainably monitor and manage zoonotic disease outbreaks, the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and other health threats. It is essential to regularly gather and assess samples from humans, animals, foods, and the environment to check for zoonotic pathogens and their levels of antimicrobial resistance.© The Authors 2023