Conference Agenda

Preparing the One Health workforce to detect and respond to zoonotic and parasitic disease threats demands practised, integrated decision-making across human, animal, and environmental health sectors. Australia's only veterinary school with a working farm on campus, Murdoch University co-locates a teaching veterinary hospital, research farm, bushland and wetland reserves, and public health facilities within walking distance of metropolitan hospitals, providing a natural living laboratory for parasitology and zoonotic disease surveillance training. BMS501 Zoonoses, Pandemic Surveillance and Preparedness is a core unit within Murdoch's Master of Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control. Field and laboratory practicals use the campus environment directly, with students conducting real sample collection, parasite identification, and vector surveillance across human, animal, and environmental interfaces on site. Students build preparedness plans, One Health stakeholder maps, and risk communication products in team-based workshops. Indigenous-led teaching anchors the unit in culturally safe governance and First Nations perspectives on surveillance. The unit culminates in a large-scale simulated outbreak using the EpiGames mobile application, opened to staff and students from human health, veterinary, and environmental science backgrounds. When the human, animal, and environmental health interfaces are literally on campus, authentic One Health parasitology training becomes possible.