West Bengal has directed the formation of district-level One Health committees to coordinate the prevention of diseases that can spread between animals, people and the environment, according to a new guideline issued by the state health department. The committees will bring together health officials, veterinarians, environmental authorities, food safety officers and local administrations.
The move covers risks associated with zoonotic diseases, including Nipah, Ebola, rabies, leptospirosis, anthrax, brucellosis, avian influenza and scrub typhus. The report by Sangbad Pratidin said the state also intends to strengthen monitoring of dengue and malaria by examining mosquito breeding, stagnant water, weather conditions and environmental changes alongside clinical treatment.
The proposed district committees will include the district magistrate, the chief medical officer of health, the deputy director of the Animal Resources Development Department, the principal of the district medical college, the divisional forest officer, the officer in charge of the veterinary laboratory, a municipal officer, the chairperson of the zilla parishad and a rural development officer. The composition places public health surveillance within a wider administrative framework rather than leaving disease control solely to hospitals.
The report said the state’s approach recognises that disease risks may originate in animals, the environment and agricultural produce, and may require coordinated investigation. It also said the committees would bring researchers and medical professionals into district-level teams. The guideline does not, in the supplied report, specify a separate budget, meeting frequency, reporting deadline or district-wise implementation schedule.
Siddhartha Joardar, a virus specialist and professor at the West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, welcomed the decision. He said district-level One Health committees could help address zoonotic disease risks such as Nipah virus transmission associated with fruit bats, as well as the threat of antimicrobial resistance.
Joardar said the One Health approach gained international relevance after outbreaks including SARS, MERS and Ebola, and became especially important following the COVID-19 pandemic. He described the concept as one in which human, animal and environmental health are treated as interconnected rather than as separate administrative concerns.
For municipalities and district administrations, the committee structure could connect disease surveillance with practical urban and rural responsibilities such as sanitation, water accumulation, waste management, food safety, animal health and environmental monitoring. The immediate significance of the state order is therefore institutional: it assigns multiple departments a role in identifying and breaking disease transmission chains.
The health department’s guideline, as reported, is the next step in establishing the committees across districts. Further details on their operational powers, data-sharing arrangements and implementation milestones were not provided in the source report.
