ORION: One Health Surveillance Initiative on Harmonisation of Data Collection and Interpretation

The ORION project developed and optimized resources supporting the implementation of the One Health paradigm.

These solutions were evaluated in a number of national One Health (OH) pilots as well as in a supra-national pilot with EFSA and ECDC.

One of the main ORION project outcomes is the so-called One Health Surveillance (OHS) Codex, which is a framework supporting the implementation of the One Health paradigm. This framework was implemented as a  continuously updateable online resource.

It is founded on the ORION requirement analysis where ORION partners jointly concluded that surveillance data integration in a One Health context requires a number of specific actions on different problem types by various stakeholders along the full surveillance pathway. This finding led to the design of an extendable OHS Codex structure that covers four main principles. Each principle represents an area, where specific actions could help to adopt the One Health paradigm. This structure enabled ORION partners to develop and integrate a broad spectrum of innovative solutions, resources and findings into a consistent overarching framework, including lessons learned from national pilots.

Among others, the OHS Codex encompass the “One Health Report Annotation Checklist” (OH-CRAC), National OHS Report Templates, the One Health EJP Glossary, a OHS Inspiration catalogue, the OH Surveillance Pathway Visualization, the OH Knowledge Base – Surveillance systems, the Sequencing for Surveillance (SfS) Handbook and the Health Surveillance Ontology.

In several national OH pilots country specific solutions were established that created direct impact on cross-sector communication, surveillance data exchange and interpretation. For example, in the WP2-NGS pilot the first cross-sector Integrated Rapid Infectious Disease Analysis (IRIDA) and NGS data analysis platform was established at the Norwegian Research and Education Cloud. As a result, there is an increased collaboration and information exchange between the veterinary and public health sectors in Norway. The Danish pilots contributed to improved OH reporting, e.g. the Salmonella and Campylobacter chapter in DANMAP 2019, and the Danish national surveillance system for AMR and AMU accessible here.

They also established a sequencing based Campylobacter surveillance system that will be extended in the future into a platform for real-time surveillance data and result sharing. The Swedish pilot led to the implementation of new work procedures in the process of generating the annual surveillance reports on zoonotic diseases with an improved collaboration among the national OH sectors. The revised processes helped to identify and address bottlenecks in cross-sectoral interoperability and FAIRness of surveillance results. Innovative data interoperability solutions supporting data interoperability were developed and tested.

On international level, the ORION project performed a number of activities to share knowledge with international stakeholders like EFSA and ECDC, for example in a dedicated pilot project. In addition, a number of ORION solutions were integrated into the Surveillance and Information Sharing Operational Tool (SISOT) of WHO/FAO/OIE.

Members of the ORION project presented research results at various international conferences, e.g. ASM2019, ASM2020, ASM2021, the 6th World One Health Congress etc., conducted several webinars and organized international workshops with other research projects and institutes, e.g. the NGS workshop 2020, the CPD2021 module, the ASM2021 Satellite Workshop Software Fair. ORION partners published a number of scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals.