2019 – Posted in: Blog

ONE HEALTH CONCEPT

For: Mains

Topic cover: One Health Concept, Why it is important, what do we need to protect, related facts, Current progress, Role of World Health Organization

News Flash

The World Organization of Animal Health, commonly known as OIE (an abbreviation of its French title), summarises the One Health concept as “human health and animal health are interdependent and bound to the health of the ecosystems in which they exist”.

For example (diseases): Bird Flu, Avian influenza, Severe acute respiratory syndrome.

According to the World Health Organization, One Health approach is particularly relevant include food safety, the control of zoonoses (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as flu, rabies and Rift Valley Fever), and combatting antibiotic resistance (when bacteria change after being exposed to antibiotics and become more difficult to treat).

Is One Health a new concept?

It is not a new concept, though it is of late that it has been formalised in health governance systems.

The hitherto philosophy of One Health, recognises inter-connectivity among human health, the health of animals, and the environment.

Circa 400 BC, Hippocrates in his treatise On Airs, Waters and Places had urged physicians that all aspects of patients’ lives need to be considered including their environment; disease was a result of an imbalance between man and environment.

Why do we need a One Health approach?

Many of the same microbes infect animals and humans, as they share the eco-systems they live in. Efforts by just one sector cannot prevent or eliminate the problem. For instance, rabies in humans is effectively prevented only by targeting the animal source of the virus (for example, by vaccinating dogs).
Information on influenza viruses circulating in animals is crucial to the selection of viruses for human vaccines for potential influenza pandemics.
Drug-resistant microbes can be transmitted between animals and humans through direct contact between animals and humans or through contaminated food, so to effectively contain it, a well-coordinated approach in humans and in animals is required.

Why it has gotten restored interests?

As human populations expand, it results in greater contact with domestic and wild animals, providing more opportunities for diseases to pass from one to the other. Climate change, deforestation and intensive farming further disrupt environment characteristics, while increased trade and travel result in closer and more frequent interaction, thus increasing the possibility of transmission of diseases.

Facts

According to the OIE, 60% of existing human infectious diseases are zoonotic i.e. they are transmitted from animals to humans; 75% of emerging infectious human diseases have an animal origin.
Of the five new human diseases appearing every year, three originate in animals.
80 percent of biological agents with potential bio-terrorist use are zoonotic pathogens.
It is estimated that zoonotic diseases account for nearly two billion cases per year resulting in more than two million deaths — more than from HIV/AIDS and diarrhoea.
One-fifth of premature deaths in poor countries are attributed to diseases transmitted from animals to humans.

Measures

Strengthening veterinary institutions and services.
Control zoonotic pathogens at their animal source.
Collaboration at local, regional and global levels among veterinary, health and environmental governance.
Greater investment needed in animal health infrastructure.
Developing countries like India have a much greater stake in strong One Health systems on account of agricultural systems resulting in uncomfortably close proximity of animals and humans.
Strict health surveillance to incorporate domestic animals, livestock and poultry.
Humans require a regular diet of animal protein. Thus, loss of food animals on account of poor health or disease too becomes a public health issue even though there may be no disease transmission, and we lose 20% of our animals this way.
Only 65,000 veterinary institutions tend to the health needs of 125.5 crore animals in India, and this includes 28,000 mobile dispensaries and first aid centres with bare minimum facilities.
There could not be a stronger case for reinventing the entire animal husbandry sector to be able to reach every livestock farmer, not only for disease treatment but for prevention and surveillance to minimise the threat to human health.
A robust animal health system is the first and crucial step in human health.

Current Progress

We are moving towards a strong and effective One Health regime, which establish a collaborative mechanism for joint surveillance and monitoring, strengthening disease reporting and control programmes.

The institutional mechanism for One Health governance is set up. The idea would truly get the imagination if the basic significance of animal wellbeing in human prosperity was underscored constantly.

Disease observation needs to go beyond people and incorporate preventive wellbeing and cleanliness in domesticated animals and poultry, improved measures of animal husbandry for greater food safety, and compelling correspondence protocols among animal and public health systems.

Why it matters for India?

The World Health Organization (WHO) was set up in 1948 to promote cooperation to control human diseases, among other objectives.

The cooperation and collaboration among nations to control and contain animal diseases is a sine qua non for achieving the WHO objectives had been recognised as early as in 1924 when OIE was established to fight animal diseases at the global level.

Role of the World Health Organization

WHO works closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to promote multi-sectoral responses to food safety hazards, risks from zoonoses, and other public health threats at the human-animal-ecosystem interface and provide guidance on how to reduce these risks.

WORLD ORGANIZATION OF ANIMAL HEALTH (OIE)

The need to fight animal diseases at the global level led to the creation of the Office International des Epizooties through the international Agreement signed on January 25th 1924.
In May 2003 the Office became the World Organisation for Animal Health but kept its historical acronym OIE.
The OIE is the intergovernmental organisation responsible for improving animal health worldwide.
It is recognised as a reference organisation by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in 2018 has a total of 182 Member Countries.
The OIE maintains permanent relations with nearly 75 other international and regional organisations and has Regional and sub-regional Offices on every continent.

Source: Indian Express

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