The Covid19 pandemic and the most recent cases of monkeypox rekindle the spotlight on a cumbersome but often overlooked issue: the approach One Health. But what is meant by approach One Health?
Monkey pox: what it is and how it manifests itself. A case in Italy, about sixty in Europe
by Aureliano Stingi
19 Maggio 2022
One planet, one health
The approach One Health it was first hypothesized in the 1960s by a public health veterinarian who realized that human and animal diseases have a lot in common and therefore must be addressed with a holistic approach.
The passage of a pathogen from an animal host to a human one is called spillover and is characteristic of zoonoses, that is to say infectious diseases that infect both animals and humans. Zoonoses have accompanied humanity for millennia, just think of the Justinian plague of 500 AD transmitted by rodents.
What is zoonosis, a very ancient natural phenomenon at the origin of pandemics
by Elena Cattaneo *
23 Maggio 2020
The One Health approach involves compartmentalized health management where physicians, epidemiologists, biologists, veterinarians, virologists and naturalists collaborate to predict, understand and manage public health. This approach is based on the fact that we humans are part of an ecosystem where our health also depends on the health of other elements such as animals and the environment.
But if zoonoses have existed for millennia why One Health only now?
Several characteristics of today’s society make the One Health approach fundamental:
- Increasing population and housing density
- Continuous reduction of spaces dedicated to wild nature
- Planetary interconnection
- Climate change
Recently in the magazine Nature Research has been published according to which at least 10,000 species of viruses have the ability to infect humans but for the moment they circulate only within the wild animal world. The researchers simulated different scenarios of climate change and human expansion (deforestation, land use, expansion in wild areas) discovering that many of these viruses in the future could come into contact with humans and make the famous leap creating a new potential zoonosis. .
Longform
The new epidemics: after Covid what are the risks for humanity
by Davide Michielin
November 20, 2020
So what to do?
The first step in making the approach One Health effective is to realize why it must be used and then to accept and fully understand that man is only an element of a larger ecosystem where each element is connected with the others. Subsequently, international working groups or task forces must be created to monitor emerging diseases, that is, those infectious or zoonotic diseases that have appeared and have caused a significant number of cases in recent years.
In addition, hotspots should be monitored, i.e. hot spots where the next epidemics could break out, i.e. areas where sanitary conditions are more precarious and where the population lives in close contact with animals and wild nature. Finally, the international task force must have the capacity to coordinate national public health agencies in order to create a joint response in the event of a pandemic.
A non-virtuous example was observed in the early stages of the Covid epidemic19 where individual states did not coordinate internationally, creating delays in the management of the pandemic.
Pandemics do not defeat themselves
by DAVIDE MICHIELIN
29 September 2020
TAKE HOME MESSAGE
- Recent cases of monkeypox reignite the spotlight on the approach One Health
- A planet, a greeting where man, environment and animals are connected
- Current conditions make future zonotic pandemics more likely
- The approach One Health it must be implemented as soon as possible in order to manage the pandemics of the future
REF:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04788-w
https://www.iss.it/en/one-health
https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/index.html