ONE HEALTH & PANDEMICS
The Biosphere:?The frequent interactions?between humans?with nature make the appearance of zoonoses?a high probability and a constant occurrence.
The?new?global?trade ‘normal’ brings with it large?movements?of people, animals, and their by-products?every day, all year, facilitating the spread?of new diseases?in all corners of the world.?
Pathogens brought under control before?are?rapidly?adapting to?new?environmental?conditions?and re-emerging?ever stronger.?
Meanwhile, health specialists focus on either animals or people, but seldom both, and then they know next to nothing about the environment, and the interactions between these three elements of a whole.
Zoonoses:?A zoonosis is "any disease or infection transmitted naturally between animals and people, directly or indirectly"?(directive 2003/99/CR)
A few examples: Rabies, Psitacoses, Leishmaniosis, Lyme disease, Trichinosis, Salmonellosis, Campylobacteriosis, Anisakiasis. There are over 200 known zoonoses in constant evolution out there, and who knows how many more need to be identified.?
·??????Of each 5 new diseases every year, 3 are zoonotic in origin
·??????60% of transmittable human diseases are zoonotic
·??????+1 million human diseases cases are of endemic zoonotic origin
·??????Infectious diseases are the 3rd?cause of death in the world (WHO)
Why??- Thanks to Climate Variability and human encroachment on ecosystems systematically altered or destroyed, the phenotypical plasticity of potential vectors such as birds and mosquitos are also producing rapid changes in their lives that include behavior, and the new ecosystems they are capable of carrying and transferring new, newly adapted and stronger pathogens too.
If this wasn’t enough, the?antimicrobial resistance?threat over humankind may yet be the biggest symptom of how microorganisms are rapidly adapting to the challenges produced by old-generation antibiotics, by the new changes in the ecosystems and the living beings in them.??
Holistic approaches: In the ancient past, veterinary and human medicine worked much closer together than in the present day. The?healers of ancient Egypt?and?the foundations of Greek medicine?for example were much more holistic in approach than today's myriad of 'super' specialists modern medicine produces these days.
One Health:?The?‘One Health’?concept?defines?the collaboration of health professionals?(doctors, veterinarians,?biologists,?psychologists)?to deal with cases of biological crisis.?
The name started in 2010 in the USA, after an outbreak of zoonotic H5N1 influenza, to tackle emerging health challenges coming from the interaction Human-Animal-Ecosystem, and the new biological threats springing from that interaction, urging the collaboration of all experts in each separate field.
The FAO?(UN Food and Agriculture Organization),?OIE?(now WOAH: World Organization for Animal Health), UNEP (UN Environment Program)?and the WHO?(UN World Health Organization)?put together the OHHLEP?(One Health High-Level Expert Panel)?to work on a Global One Health Action Plan.?
The Panel is working on a portfolio of key knowledge and evidence gaps, and on the prevention of emerging zoonoses, to prepare recommendations for global, regional, national, and local action.
One Health advocates for a holistic approach to health and disease, welfare, and prevention, but when one looks at the bare minimum, current efforts are focused on awareness and early warnings of biological nature.
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Snail pace: The philosophical and curricula orientation of most Academia around the world?-to prepare new specialists in specific health issues-?however, very different from the desired holistic approach.?
Doctors and specialists know close to nothing about animal health; veterinarians know the same amount about human health, and none know about biology, ecology, and the resulting interactions with animal and human health. At the different faculties, the One health subject and recommendations of the OHHLEP may be a fringe subject at best, rather than a priority cross-cutting theme.
An in-between solution to this paradigmatic obstacle may lay within epidemiology, but worldwide, efforts are currently based on awareness and early warnings?(https://onehealthinitiative.com/one-health-initiative-news/).?
One Health is currently dominated by health specialists, and its pace suggests that unless control is handled over to communication specialists and resources tripled for a worldwide public health campaign, this important priority will keep dragging its feet until the next global pandemic arrives.
In short, the rational arguments are clear and compelling, but apparently, there is still something slowing down its adoption to a near halt… but what is it? Cognitive dissonance perhaps?
A good start??-?The analogy of the elephant & the rider.?
NY University psychologist?Jonathan Haidt’s analogy about how the human mind works compares it with an elephant?(driven by intuition and emotion),?and its guide, representing the rational?mind. The sheer size of the elephant is symbolic of which part of the mind has more ‘weight’ and greater leverage at the time to make decisions.
Surprisingly enough, the rider accounts for a meager 5% of that leverage, and in many cases, he ends up rationalizing what the elephant does!
In other words, if the elephant chooses the direction of the ‘trip’, the holistic concept and approach to one health must be ’sold’?intuitively!
In any case, the advance of the One Health concept has taken over 15 years to consolidate, and the path ahead is still uphill. Although the rider may understand and agree wholeheartedly, the elephant is still uninterested.
Humanity may not have another 15 years to procrastinate.
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