While the One Health framework is now widely accepted as a strength in understanding antimicrobial resistance, its application in intervention design to prevent and control drug-resistant infections across humans, animals, and the environment remains weak. The potential for infection prevention and control measures to contribute to the antimicrobial resistance agenda is recognised in rhetoric, but evidence to guide action is patchy and uncoordinated.

While water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and on-farm biosecurity interventions are key strategies for preventing and controlling infections, they are frequently implemented separately for humans and animals. A new article published in BMJ Global Health (Mar 2023) argues for integration across these sectors to improve planning for antimicrobial resistance control.

The authors suggest several pathways to illustrate WASH and biosecurity overlaps and their potential to impact antimicrobial resistance directly or indirectly in the human-animal-environmental interface.

They propose integrating these two fields for the prevention and control of infections and antimicrobial resistance, which will improve not only human but also animal and environmental health, leveraging the synergies and differences of these two traditionally separated fields, and recognising their potential to complement each other when addressing health issues in the One Health triad.

Citation
Jimenez, C.E.P., Keestra, S.M., Tandon, P., Pickering, A.J., Moodley, A., Cumming, O. and Chandler, C.I.R. 2023. One Health WASH: an AMR-smart integrative approach to preventing and controlling infection in farming communities. BMJ Global Health 8(3): e011263.