AMRRIC is drawing on lessons from the emergence of Ehrlichia canis, a new Australian Centre for Disease Control-funded project and broader emergency animal disease engagement to help strengthen One Health preparedness for remote communities.
The emergence of Ehrlichia canis (E. canis) in northern Australia in 2020 brought a serious new disease of dogs into remote communities and highlighted broader questions about how Australia’s disease preparedness and response systems work when companion animals, remote service delivery and multiple sectors intersect.
AMRRIC has continued to carry lessons from that experience into its advocacy, partnerships and preparedness work. Now, a project funded by the Australian Centre for Disease Control (Australian CDC) is providing an opportunity to examine these issues more systematically and identify practical opportunities to strengthen preparedness for future zoonotic disease events involving companion animals.
Understanding the remote operating context
Australia has well-established systems for biosecurity, emergency animal disease management and public health response. However, for animal diseases, these systems have largely developed around livestock industries and economically significant emergency animal diseases. Preparedness and response arrangements involving companion animals are more distributed across governments, veterinary services, local organisations, communities and animal owners.
These differences become particularly important in remote Northern Australia, where geographic isolation, limited veterinary access, workforce constraints, diagnostic delays and complex service-delivery environments can affect how preparedness and response measures work in practice.
AMRRIC’s Australian CDC-funded project, Strengthening zoonotic disease responses involving companion animals in remote Northern Australia, uses companion animal-associated disease events as a practical lens to explore how One Health preparedness can be operationalised across animal health, human health, environmental health and community systems.
Phase 1 established the foundations for this work by reviewing existing preparedness and governance arrangements, examining the operational context for companion animals in remote Northern Australia and considering lessons from the E. canis experience.
It identified preliminary preparedness challenges relating to surveillance and early detection, veterinary and diagnostic capacity, locally based animal health capability, cross-sector coordination, culturally safe engagement and trusted local relationships. Importantly, these findings provide a starting point for further testing, rather than a final assessment of current systems.
From evidence to co-design
Phase 2 is now moving from evidence synthesis into structured stakeholder co-design.
Beginning with a face-to-face workshop alongside the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Environmental Health Conference (NATSIEH) in November, followed by three online workshops, the project will bring together perspectives from animal health, public health, environmental health, emergency management, local government, veterinary services, community organisations and First Nations stakeholders.
Participants will use realistic disease scenarios to explore how information, responsibilities, resources and response measures might work in remote community contexts. The aim is not to prescribe a response, but to build a shared understanding of existing strengths, operational challenges and opportunities to improve coordination and preparedness.
The findings will ultimately inform a proposed Phase 3 Exercise Framework and high-level Simulation Program Design. Any subsequent Phase 3 national One Health preparedness simulation would be subject to future funding.
Carrying experience into broader systems change
Alongside the Australian CDC project, AMRRIC continues to engage with Australia’s broader emergency animal disease preparedness and response systems.
Most recently, AMRRIC’s Head of Innovation and Strategy Dr Bonny Cumming participated in Consultative Committee on Emergency Animal Diseases (CCEAD) training, delivered by Animal Health Australia with support from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
This engagement builds AMRRIC’s understanding of national emergency animal disease response arrangements and supports our broader advocacy for the realities of companion animal health and service delivery in remote Indigenous communities to be considered in preparedness and response planning.
Together, these activities reflect AMRRIC’s ongoing work to translate experience from disease events such as E. canis into longer-term systems change — bringing remote community experience into broader preparedness conversations and working collaboratively to strengthen the systems that will be needed when future disease threats emerge.
Strengthening zoonotic disease responses involving companion animals in remote Northern Australia is funded by the Australian Centre for Disease Control and led by AMRRIC.
Learn more about the Australian CDC’s One Health work here.
