Pusan National University (PNU) has established Korea's first “One Health” course. It is expected that the Department of Preliminary medicine, School of Dentistry, and School of Korean Medicine will be able to develop their ability to diagnose infectious disease patients.

The One Health lecture, which started its first course on March 8th, has a collection of 60 students from PNU Department of Preliminary Medicine and other medical fields. One Health is the concept that the most appropriate response should be made through human, animal, and environmental linkages in zoonosis, which is an infectious disease that occurs between animals and humans.

This new course will be run by a “demonstration project and developmental research of liberal arts One Health.” As a project promoted by The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) Zoonosis Management Division, PNU opened a course called "Infectious Diseases in the modern society and One Health" and started lecturing on "What is One Health and why is it important?" 13 experts in One Health, epidemiology, and zoonosis were invited from five veterinary colleges, three medical schools in Korea, and four Government departments and affiliated research institutes. Currently, 60 students from PNU Department of Preliminary Medicine and medical fields are taking the class. 

This course will be only held at PNU for the time being. PNU Yangsan Campus refers to a nationwide comprehensive medical cluster with six general hospitals, six medical-related colleges and graduate school, and research institutes. Due to the nature of the One Health course, it is not easy to start at ordinary universities because experts in various fields have to make lecture materials together and set the dates for the lectures. Yu Hak-Sun (Prof. of School of Medicine, PNU) said, “PNU is the best university for biomedical research based on One Health.” Meanwhile, KDCA is also pushing for a project to expand the One Health education base, which will be shared with universities and educational institutions in Korea after producing the One Health lecture as a video.

PNU expects to be able to train the abilities of talented medical students by establishing a One Health course. When zoonosis is increasing, One Health approach that integrates humans, animals, and the environment is essential. Prof. Yu said, “It is intended to make it possible to think of practical methods to prevent and treat zoonosis. It will be helpful to expand to various treatment directions biased toward clinical care.”

Reporter Choi Sun-Woo

Translated by Lim Chae-Kyung