One World One Health

By S R Ranjan: People’s health does not have borders and its safeguard cannot be done in isolation within the territorial confines of self-protection and nations’ selective approach. The impact and spread of COVID-19 pandemic have exposed to the world the life’s emergency, challenges of pandemics that threaten global public health and the urgent need to address the predominant risks of emergence of such global health crisis and pandemics. It has demonstrated that we all need to come together as one world to deal with the root causes of novel diseases in order to prevent future pandemics. “Human health does not exist in a vacuum, and nor can our efforts to protect and promote it. The close links between human, animal and environmental health demand close collaboration, communication and coordination between the relevant sectors,” said WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Learning from the pandemic crisis, world organizations have united to launch a new One Health high-level expert panel to improve understanding of how diseases with the potential to trigger pandemics, emerge and spread. With One Health approach, its mission is to recognize the links between people's health, animals, and the environment. Furthermore, to prevent and prepare for zoonotic (an infectious disease caused by a pathogen from a animal to a human) outbreaks, the expert panel will identify capacity gaps as well as agreements on good practices. For this, it will carry out systematic analyses of scientific knowledge about the factors that lead to transmission of a disease from animal to human and vice versa.

Reportedly, three quarters of all emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. In order to avert outbreak of diseases like H5N1 avian influenza, MERS, Ebola, Zika and COVID-19, the panel will develop long-term global plan and advise world organizations like — World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Organisation for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme — on global actions.

Today there’s no denial that the world now accepts the human role and intrusion in the changing nature’s habitats and disruption. As such, the panel will consider the impact of human activity on the environment and wildlife habitats. This will include all areas like — urbanization and infrastructure development, international travel and trade, food production and distribution, climate change and biodiversity loss, pressure on the natural resource base — which can lead to the emergence of zoonotic diseases.

“The panel is a much-needed initiative to transform One Health from a concept to concrete policies that safeguard the health of the world’s people,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

(Singh Rakesh Ranjan)

Freelance Journalist

(Representational images: source)