Press Release: Collaborating to Strengthen One Health Education in Southeast Asia

In January 2021, Chevron partnered with Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN) and other public agencies to increase health literacy and an understanding of the One Health approach, with the launch of a two-year program called, “Strengthening One Health Education in Southeast Asia”.

Teams of 4 multidisciplinary students from member Universities across Southeast Asia One Health University Network entered the 2021 SEAOHUN Students’ Regional Competition. Teams had to create an original video to communicate the risk of zoonotic diseases from three topics: gender and zoonotic diseases, underserved communities and their interactions with animals, wildlife, and zoonotic diseases.

The winner, based on public votes, was Malaysian team, Panthera Tigris (named after the scientific name for Tiger), from Malaysia One Health University Network (MyOHUN) member universities, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia. Instead of focusing on one zoonotic disease, Panthera Tigris decided to address the root issue of human illegal activity. The submission delved into the relationship between illegal logging and the role of bats in the ecosystem.

The group, originally met through a MyOHUN event, said their objective was to reach the broader public using simple terms so that the video could be easily understood. “We hope that our video prompts young students to care about this important health issue.” said Panthera Tigris group member, Shasha Aqilah Sheikh Zulkifli.

“SEAOHUN Students' Regional Competition fosters a network of young, multidisciplinary professionals to learn and apply One Health concept. They achieve this through crafting messages to increase knowledge of the interdependencies among humans, animals, and their shared environment, and stimulating good practices in communities on how to make our world safer from infectious disease threats.” commented Dr Vipat Kuruchittham, SEAOHUN Executive Director.

Kurt Glaubitz, General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Chevron Asia Pacific, said “We are proud to support SEAOHUN’s efforts to train the next generation of One Health professionals to better prepare Southeast Asian nations to combat infectious disease outbreaks.”

About SEAOHUN One Health program

The broader two-year program covers One Health education for school children and their teachers, university students and their professors, as well as healthcare professionals who are solving complex issues in their communities. “One Health” is an integrative effort of multiple disciplines —working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—to attain optimal health for people, animals, and their shared environment.

The objective of this program is to promote the ‘One Health’ concept among students, school officials and teachers in Thai border schools, support expansion of SEAOHUN programs in the Philippines, create a

regional student program, and promote the One Health success story of the ‘Lawa model’, to make it widely accessible.

The program, which runs through December 2022, aims to improve public health literacy in children to lay the foundation for effective public responses to infectious disease threats in the future, foster One Health University Networks and develop One Health leaders in Southeast Asia and train health professionals from all member countries to apply the integrative One Health approach with active community engagement. SEAOHUN member countries include Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The program plans to train 50 primary school teachers to incorporate One Health into their teaching curricula, provide One Health education to 1000 primary school children, engage 200 university students in regional student activities and provide One Health training to 230 in-service professionals.

About Chevron

As a leading energy company in the Asia-Pacific region, Chevron provides affordable, reliable, and ever-cleaner energy for millions of people. We create local economic opportunity, contribute to the energy security of the region’s nations, and strive to empower people to meet their full potential. We are active in Australia, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. With some of the most productive and long-established energy basins in the world, we are applying human ingenuity and advanced technology to develop major capital projects, increase production from mature fields and explore for new energy resources.

About Chevron Malaysia Limited

Chevron Malaysia Limited has been operating in Malaysia for more than 80 years under its retail brand Caltex®, offering high quality products and services. To date, we have more than 430 service stations strategically located throughout Peninsular Malaysia and employees working in several areas of business such as Marketing, Lubricants and Terminal operations. More information on Chevron Malaysia Limited is available at www.caltex.com/my/.

About SEAOHUN

Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN), established in late 2011 with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is the regional network of 93 universities in 8 Southeast Asian countries working together to develop a resilient and competent One Health workforce to effectively prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease threats by leveraging education, research, and training excellence provided by member universities. SEAOHUN advocates the role of universities to a) build the capacity of professionals across sectors to solve complex One Health issues, b) conduct research for evidence-based decision making, and c) assist governments with public health surge capacity.

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