Strengthening One Health Approach for Pandemic Preparedness and AMR Mitigation in Tajikistan

Background

Tajikistan was awarded US$11.99 million from the Pandemic Fund to scale up the country’s pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capabilities and thereby boost national and global health security. The grant mobilized an additional US$74.5 million in co-financing from international partners and US$66.3 million in co-investment from the government’s own budget. The project also features the collaboration of partners like Red Crescent and Red Cross Society.

Tajikistan shares borders with Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China, and the high volume of trade across those borders heightens the risk of disease spread. Regional instability, migration in and out of Tajikistan, the country's mountainous terrain, and frequent natural disasters exacerbate that risk, and rising antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is of concern, as well. Meanwhile, the country's defense against public health threats is fragile. More than half of Tajikistan’s people live in rural areas, where access to healthcare is limited.

Tajikistan’s project seeks to overcome the country’s challenges through multisectoral cooperation. The project is led by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population and the Committee for Food Security, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture. The project also features the partnership of the Red Crescent and Red Cross Society and two implementing entities: the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Project objectives

With the support of its project partners and the Pandemic Fund, Tajikistan aims to enhance pandemic PPR, with a focus on ten high-risk border regions.

Implementation arrangements and key components

Tajikistan’s project aligns with the Pandemic Fund’s priorities -- surveillance, laboratory systems, and workforce development – and is organized into four components: Alert, Unite, Invest, and Perform. More detail on these components follows.

Alert: This portion of the project focuses on enhancing digital early warning systems in high-risk areas, upgrading diagnostic and biosafety capacity at district-level human and veterinarian laboratories, and training intelligence officers, human and animal health workers, and civil society organizations in surveillance and response. The emphasis is on community-level activity, including using digital tools such as SMS to enable two-way communication and build a responsive grassroots network.

Unite: Activities in this area focus on strengthening national and cross-border PPR, including by reinforcing the Public Health Emergency Operations Center as a multisectoral coordination hub, digitizing the flow of surveillance and laboratory data to national systems, establishing standard operating procedures, conducting simulation exercises, and training One Health officers. Activities also include upgrading ten of Tajikistan’s points of entry and the surrounding health facilities, establishing data-sharing mechanisms with neighboring countries, scaling up AMR surveillance, and sharing data with global platforms like the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System.

Invest: This work aims to generate sustained investment in PPR by advancing domestic financing strategies and capacity, aligned with the country’s long-term health security goals. It also focuses on fixing supply shortages in the veterinary sector.

Perform: The project’s final component focuses on effective stewardship of Pandemic Fund resources, including transparent financial tracking and robust measurement and evaluation systems.

Building on its longstanding partnership with Tajikistan’s government, the ADB will be the lead implementation entity, focusing on the human health aspects of surveillance, laboratory systems, and points of entry, as well as overseeing the coordination of delivery partners, monitoring and evaluation, financial reporting, and other project activities. FAO will be the principal technical partner for animal health, bridging gaps across sectors and safeguarding the One Health approach throughout the project.