One Health at Opinion Festival in Paide, Estonia

Mari-Anne Härma

Mari-Anne Härma joined the Estonian National Public Health Authority – Health Board just days before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. At the time, she was completing her PhD studies in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki. She started at the Health Board as the newly appointed Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control, which soon became the national epicenter of the pandemic crisis. Six months into the pandemic, she took over as Acting Director General and national health emergency lead. She now serves as the Deputy Director General of the Health Board. Trained in immunology and genetics, Mari-Anne quickly became one of Estonia's main spokespersons on infectious diseases and currently oversees the Health Board's One Health initiative efforts. 

"The topics I can cover include the current state of One Health in Estonia from the government's point of view, our strengths and weaknesses, and how officials perceive the One Health initiative. I can discuss the obstacles we are facing, what could be done quickly, and what actions would have the most impact. Additionally, I can share our goals, dreams, and aspirations, and explain why we believe this effort is important."

 A Representative at the Ministry of the Interior of Estonia 

"My goal would be to speak and explain what kind of CBRN prevention and readiness measures have been adopted in Estonia to be ready to respond to potential threats like chemical, bio- and radiological (CBRN) attacks. 

I can speak about national multi agency CBRN steering group work where we define the roles and responsibilities of different authorities in the field of CBRN response.  

Also, I can speak in a few words about CBRN risk assessment and response plan."

Anu Mill 

Chief of Estonian Defense Forces Healthcare Center. Medical doctor, completed the residency of infectious diseases and practiced in this specialty in various civil hospitals. In the army since 2000, started as a unit doc and now she manages the provision of health care in our Defense forces. 

"My topic would cover the military involvement in the contagious diseases, based on our geopolitical location. The army cannot exist as a separate entity, we are part of the whole society and affected by it. Our forces remain vulnerable to a wide variety of hazards and threats including also exposure to environmental hazards such as disease, toxic industrial hazards, CBRN. Due to the size of the Estonian Defense Forces we are very dependent and working closely with our NATO partners (working groups, medical intelligence) and civil organizations: universities and mixed research units, Estonian Health Board, etc "

Arvo Viltrop

Arvo is a Chair Professor of Veterinary Bio- and Population Medicine at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, being a Head of the Chair of Veterinary Biomedicine and Food Hygiene. He defended his degree of Doctor of Science (PhD) in 2002 in the epidemiology of Bovine viral diarrhea at his home University. He has been involved in research on the epidemiology of various infections including honey bee, animal and human pathogens. Since 2014, after the incursion of African swine fever to Estonia, ASF has become one of his main research topics. Current research topics deal also with important zoonotic pathogens like West Nile fever and Avian influenza. He has been a member of the Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and member of the standing working group for ASF. He has been participating in various advisory committees to the Estonian government. 

 "I will introduce new animal and zoonotic pathogens to Estonia over recent decades."

Beate Conrady

Beate Conrady leads the Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Animal Health Economics Group (TIPTON Group) at the University of Copenhagen. Her research supports veterinary public health decision-making by implementing effective prevention and intervention measures against infectious agents, emphasizing modern computational inference and simulation models. She provides resource planning evidence for German, Austrian, and Danish authorities based on the epidemiological situation and supports colleagues with her data science and analytical skills. Prof. Conrady is part of international committees such as DISCONTOOLS, the Med-Vet-Net-Association, and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). She has consulted for the Austrian Government during the COVID-19 pandemic, developed sampling and data analysis strategies for Hygiene Technologie Kompetenzzentrum GmbH, and has collaborated with FAO and WOAH. As an assessor for various international organizations, she has led consortia attracting over 23 million Euros in funding, coordinates six international projects, and supervises a PhD student at the University of Nairobi. Conrady's collaborations have resulted in over 65 scientific publications with more than 250 co-authors from 30 countries. Besides teaching at the University of Copenhagen, she lectures at the University of Bonn and the Education and Qualification Alliance SCE, focusing on One Health, Epidemiology, Animal Diseases, and Disease Modeling.

"I will present the increase in the disease resilience of animal production, while promoting sustainable One Health actions:

• The current problem if we don’t follow the system-thinking approach, 

• How new experiments can help us to move FROM association TO causal discovery of One Health challenges,

• How One Health’s next-generation computational tool can help us to identify associations between systems that increase disease resilience and contribute to One Health's sustainable actions,

• Transboundary models for disease preparedness and outbreak response at EU level."

The moderator of the discussion panel is Professor Alireza Fazeli, ERA Chair of Comparative Medicine and Coordinator of One Health Boost Project, at the Estonian University of Life Sciences.