Dr Gyanendra Gongal is a Senior Public Health Officer under the World Health Emergency Programme in the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia (SEARO). He joined the World Health Organization in 2006. He received a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Moscow Veterinary Academy and did an MSc in Epidemiology from the Freie Universität Berlin. He worked in various capacities under Nepal's Ministry of Health and Agriculture for 17 years. Before joining the World Health Organization, he had work experience with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He has been one of the active members of the regional tripartite group (FAO-OIE-WHO) in the Asia-Pacific region to advocate for an operationalization of ‘One Health’ in tripartite platforms since 2010, which has helped to promote a better understanding of intersectoral collaboration for addressing rabies, emerging zoonoses, food safety, and antimicrobial resistance. He contributed to developing and implementing the Strategic Framework for the elimination of rabies at the regional and country levels in Asia. He coordinated the Asia Pacific Quadripartite One Health Secretariat from 2023 to 2024. He has developed strategies, guidelines, and policy papers for preventing and controlling emerging infectious diseases, including rabies. He has contributed to capacity building and strengthening rabies prevention and control in Asian countries. He is an honorary member of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India and a fellow of the Indian Association of VPH Specialists. He served as a member of the OIE Ad Hoc Group on Rabies in 2010. He received a Young Scientist Award from the Nepal Academy for Science and Technology in 1999 and the WHO Reward for Excellence in 2016. He is an adjunct professor at the City University of Hong Kong and a fellow of the Indian Association of VPH Specialists. He is a Member of the One Health Network for the Global Governance of Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Resistance (Global 1HN) Advisory Committee in Canada. He is a WHO Ethical Review Committee member and vice chair of the Global Leptospirosis Environmental Action Network (GLEAN). He has attended over 400 national and international meetings, conferences, and workshops and published more than 81 technical articles on EID, zoonoses, food safety, and One Health. He also reviews 44 international journals on AMR, zoonoses, and food safety (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6539-7569).