World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW) is a global campaign to raise awareness and increase understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to promote global action to tackle the emergence and spread of drug-resistant infections. WAAW is observed annually from 18 to 24 November.  

What is AMR?

AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites no longer respond to medicines intended to kill them. As drug resistance increases, antimicrobial agents, such as antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and antiparasitics, become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

AMR is no longer a future challenge; it is a global threat.  

Bacterial AMR is already associated with more than 4.7 million deaths annually. Without urgent action, AMR could cause up to 39 million deaths by 2050 and cost the global economy more than US$3.4 trillion annually, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries.

About WAAW 2026 theme 

Our world is more connected than ever. The medicines that save lives, the food we produce, the economies we depend on, and the health of our environment are all connected. When drug-resistant pathogens emerge and spread, they impact our health, animal health, food security, economies and sustainable development. Their emergence and spread are also influenced by the health of our environment.

Around the world, governments, health professionals, veterinarians, environmental experts, farmers, researchers and communities are already taking action to prevent AMR. They are improving access to, responsible use of and safe disposal of antimicrobials, strengthening water, sanitation and hygiene, promoting sustainable food systems, diagnostics and vaccines, reducing pollution and protecting the environment. Every action matters.

Global Action Plan on AMR 2026–2036 

The updated Global Action Plan on AMR 2026 – 2036 reinforces this vision. It calls on all countries and sectors to work together under a One Health approach to prevent and tackle AMR. The Plan sets global targets including reducing bacterial AMR-associated human deaths, and global antimicrobial use, particularly in agrifood systems, and minimizing environmental pollution from AMR microbes and antimicrobial residues. Its goal is simple but vital: to keep life-saving medicines effective, prevent infections, and protect the health of people, animals, plants, and the environment.  

Take one action 

This World AMR Awareness Week 2026 everyone has a role to play. Whether you are a policymaker, health worker, veterinarian, farmer, environmental practitioner, or community member, your actions matter. Together, through One Health and one action at a time, we can prevent and contain the spread of AMR, protect the health of people, animals, plants and the environment, strengthen food systems and support resilient economies, for a more sustainable future for generations to come.  

WAAW 2026 theme in six languages 

صحة واحدة، خطوة واحدة: لنوقف مقاومة مضادات الميكروبات الآن!  Arabic 

Chinese: 同一健康，同一行动：立即预防抗微生物药物耐药性 

French: Une seule santé, une seule action : Agir maintenant pour prévenir la RAM  

Spanish: Una sola salud, una sola acción: prevenir la RAM ya 

Russian: Единое здоровье, единое действие: Предотвратим УПП сейчас 

Call for Abstracts

The theme of the 9th PPR GREN is “Accelerating PPR Eradication: From Scientific Evidence to Implementation”. Submitted abstract should be relevant for the theme and the following topics:

1. Translating spatial and temporal science into targeted interventions, including the use of episystems, machine learning models, GIS-MCDA, and predictive risk maps and other epidemiological approaches to guide national surveillance and vaccine control. 
2. Biosecurity and managing transboundary risks of PPR, with a focus on veterinary controls and border biosecurity in informal trade networks; including movement control, national wide and routine biosecurity measures in small scale farms, zoning and compartmentalization and analysis of field data from the 2025–2026 Balkan outbreaks. 
3. Next-generation diagnostics and vaccine manufacturing, including optimization of production platforms, field trials of thermostable and DIVA vaccines, upstream manufacturing innovations, and development of polyvalent vaccines. 
4. Resource mobilization for PPR eradication, addressing funding gaps, investment opportunities, and economic justifications, including understanding the impacts of PPR and the investment case for PPR eradication for livelihoods, food security, and climate change mitigation. 
5. Susceptibility and transmission dynamics of PPR in typical, atypical, and wildlife species, including evaluation and validation of diagnostic tests. 
6. Sociocultural dynamics in PPR vaccination, including community engagement in the eradication agenda, local beliefs, gender, and trust.

Please prepare your abstracts following the attached guidelines and template.  

All abstracts must be submitted online by completing the abstract submission form and emailing the abstract to [email protected], copying [email protected].

If you encounter any issues while submitting the abstract, please contact [email protected]

Deadline for abstract submission is August 1, 2026, at midnight (GMT).

Replay

WOAH is pleased to invite you to a webinar marking the release of the Guidelines for African swine fever (ASF) vaccines: field evaluation and post-vaccination monitoring.

These guidelines provide practical technical guidance to support WOAH Members and relevant stakeholders in the design, implementation, and evaluation of field studies for ASF vaccines, as well as post-vaccination monitoring and evaluation of vaccination programmes. They aim to support evidence-based decision-making on the potential use of ASF vaccination as part of national or regional ASF prevention and control strategies.

The webinar will provide an opportunity to present the guidelines, their purpose and scope, and their relevance for Veterinary Services, competent authorities and partners involved in ASF vaccine evaluation and monitoring.

Learn more about the guidelines here.

Agenda

Time (CET)	Session	Speakers
10:00–10:05	Opening remarks	Dr Baba Soumaré, WOAH
10:05–10:15	WOAH process for the development of the technical guidelines	Dr Ronald Mora, WOAH
10:15–10:35	Technical presentation of the guidelines: field evaluation, benefit–risk assessment and post-vaccination monitoring	Dr Georgina Limón-Vega and team, The Pirbright Institute
10:35–11:25	Member perspectives and expert question-and-answer session	Dr Janice Garcia, Philippines Dr Phan Le Van, Viet Nam Georgina Limón-Vega and team, The Pirbright Institute Moderated by Dr Ronald Mora, WOAH
11:25–11:30	Conclusions and next steps	Dr Gregorio Torres, WOAH

WOAH is pleased to invite you to a webinar marking the launch of TRUVET – the Track and Report Unsafe VETerinary products platform.

TRUVET is a new global digital tool designed to support WOAH Members in the systematic reporting, sharing, and analysis of unsafe veterinary products. By strengthening transparency and collaboration, TRUVET contributes to improved animal health, public health, and trust in veterinary products worldwide.

Register to this webinar to:

• Learn about the purpose and key features of TRUVET
• Understand how TRUVET supports the detection, reporting, and management of unsafe veterinary products
• Explore how Members and stakeholders can use the platform in practice
• Engage directly with WOAH through a live Q&A session

📅 Date: 3rd June 2026
⏰ Time: 12pm CET (English)
🌐 Format: Online webinar
 

This webinar is intended for WOAH Delegates and their focal points, veterinary regulators, WOAH Collaborating Centres and reference Centres, private sector, international organisations and other stakeholders involved in veterinary product oversight.

We look forward to your participation in this important step towards strengthening global vigilance on veterinary products.

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Session times for other languages

Français: 11am CET – Inscrivez-vous maintenant

Español: 5pm CET – Regístrate ahora

Replay

Introduction

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), through their joint Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases (GF-TADs), and in collaboration with the PPR Global Research and Expertise Network (PPR-GREN), are pleased to invite you to the first session of the two-part webinar series on Peste des Petits Ruminants disease (PPR) to be held on Thursday, 4 June 2026, from 11:00 to 13:20 CEST.

Organised jointly by the joint FAO-WOAH PPR Secretariat and the PPR GREN, this webinar series serves as a platform to disseminate practical, field-focused information and help bridge persistent gaps identified in PPR eradication efforts.  

This session will focus on key aspects regarding identification of high-risk populations, understanding behavioural drivers, mobilising stakeholders, and managing effective PPR control and eradication programmes. It will provide practical insights to support countries and partners in justification of field interventions towards PPR eradication. 

Agenda 

Time (CEST)	Topic/Facilitator
11:00 – 11:10	Opening remarks FAO Representative   PPR GREN Chair
11:10 – 11:50	Session 1: Targeting PPR Control Where It Matters Most
11:50 – 12:40	Session 2: Guided Expert Discussion: Stakeholder Engagement & Behavioural Drivers
12:40 – 13:00	Discussion, Question & Answer session
13:00 – 13:10	Mentimeter: Feedback session
13:10– 13:20	Closing remarks   WOAH Representative
The event will be moderated by GREN Bureau, WOAH and FAO PPR Secretariat.

Replay

Background

The International Alliance against Health Risks in Wildlife Trade is a global, interdisciplinary network of over 180 organisations and 500 experts working to prevent pathogen spillover by bridging science, policy and practice. The Alliance envisions acting as an incubator for generating and sharing knowledge across its network and beyond. The Expert Talk series has been designed to support this aim by enabling members and inviting experts to share relevant insights and evidence-based knowledge with the community. Learn more about the Alliance’s work on https://alliance-health-wildlife.org/ .

Introduction

The global wildlife trade brings wild animals and humans into close and repeated contact across harvesting, transport, markets, consumption, and captivity. These interactions create opportunities for pathogens to move between species and can contribute to the emergence of infectious diseases. While traded wild animals are known to carry zoonotic pathogens and parasites, it has remained unclear whether traded species are more likely to share pathogens with humans than non-traded species. In this talk, Dr Jérôme Gippet will present a recent study published in Science, combining global wildlife trade records with host-pathogen association data to examine how wildlife trade has shaped animal-to-human pathogen transmission over the past 40 years. The study shows that traded mammals are more likely to share pathogens with humans, that live-animal and illegal trade can further increase this risk, and that the number of pathogens shared with humans increases with the time a species has spent in trade. These findings highlight wildlife trade as an important driver of zoonotic risk and underline the need to better integrate disease surveillance into wildlife trade regulations.

Biography of the presenter

Dr Jérôme Gippet is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research explores human–wildlife interactions from both applied and fundamental perspectives in ecology and conservation. Trained as an invasion biologist and urban ecologist at the University of Lyon, he later worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne, where he investigated emerging exotic pet markets in invertebrates. This work revealed a previously overlooked global trade in pet ants, highlighting important risks for biological invasions (Gippet & Bertelsmeier 2021, PNAS). His research is strongly data-driven and often draws on unconventional sources, such as online pet shops and social media, to better understand wildlife markets and their consequences for biodiversity, invasion dynamics, and pathogen transmission.