COVID-19 and One Health

Author: Di Paolo T    In: International Journal of Risk and Safety Medicine

The paper analyses the reasons for which the One Health approach has become fundamental in the control of pandemic phenomena, by arguing the necessity to place it at the basis not only of health policies but also of intersectoral policies.

Authors: Hale, V.L., Dennis, P.M., McBride, D.S.      In:  Nature 602, 481–486

Humans have infected a wide range of animals with SARS-CoV-2 but the establishment of a new natural animal reservoir has not been observed. Here we document that free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are highly susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2, are exposed to multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants from humans and are capable of sustaining transmission in nature.

Author:  Helene Carabin   In: The Conversation

A pandemic treaty that incorporates One Health would advance pandemic prevention and preparedness, as well as human, animal and environmental health. It would contribute to the protection of biodiversity, reduce activities that increase the risk of pandemics such as illicit wildlife trafficking and harmful land-use changes, and would also avoid catastrophic global financial losses. Such a treaty would also improve the lives of all living beings by reducing the burden on animal and human health care as well as pressure on ecosystems and agricultural lands, and on small producers and communities.

Authors: Sellars L, Bernotas K, Sebo J, (2021).

One Health, COVID-19, and a Right to Health for Human and Nonhuman Animals. Health and Human Rights, 23(2), 35–48.

"Species extinction, the climate crisis and the threat of pandemics are three catastrophes that fuel each other. .... The realization that human health is causally linked to a healthy planet and healthy animals led to the creation of a branch of research called "One Health" several years ago."

Author: Hélène Carabin  et. al.   At: A special World Health Organization Assembly

See also - 'Preparing for pandemics:  the One Health approach

Authors:  Bauer-Babef C, Fortuna G, Peseckyte G, Foote N

"The COVID pandemic has raised more awareness of how closely our health is interconnected with animals and the environment, the chief scientist of EU’s Food Safety Agency (EFSA) told EURACTIV.   …….

.............from belonging to medical and veterinary science the concept is now including a rapidly growing range of other disciplines, including food safety, public health, health economics, and social science……

This is because we realise that we are not isolated in the world but all interconnected,” she said, mentioning that deforestation happening in West Africa, for example, gave rise to the Ebola crisis."

Author: Michaeleen Doucleff   In:  NPR Goats and Soda

………..tracking the emergence of new variants may become much more complicated, says Kuchipudi. "If we want to continue to be proactive about emerging variants — and not be surprised by one that suddenly pops up — there's an urgent need to continue to monitor SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife," he says, "especially in animals that could serve as a reservoir, like the deer."

Author: Sharon Guynp   In: The Good Men Project

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that many pathogens are zoonotic, jumping from one species to another.     There’s growing support for a One Health strategy, which recognizes that human health, animal health and the health of the planet are inextricably linked — that protecting the planet is crucial to the health of all.

Authors: Deborah Kochevar and Guilherme Werneck   In:  THE CONVERSATION

There are still questions about specifically where the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged. But experts across the globe agree that communities can take steps to reduce the risk of future spillovers. A key is for veterinarians, doctors and scientists to work together, recognizing how closely connected human health is with that of animals and of the habitats that we share – an approach known as One Health…………. a recent analysis estimates the costs of addressing spillover at high-risk interfaces through One Health approaches and forest conservation at US$22 billion to $31 billion per year. These costs are dwarfed by the estimated global GDP loss of nearly $4 trillion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authors: Aarestrup FM, Bonten M, Koopmans M    In: The LANCET Regional Health - Europe

Prior to the pandemic, genomic pathogen surveillance was slowly but gradually making its way into  public health and clinical diagnostics……. The pandemic has clearly catapulted genomic surveillance to center stage….. Most novel diseases likely circulate for some time in animals and humans before they eventually are detected in clinical cases. There is thus a need to collect standardised samples that represent the human and animal microbiome (bacteriome and virome) in a comparable way over time and between countries.

Author: Richard Seifman     In: IMPAKTER

There is now the opportunity for the full G20 leadership at its Summit in October to translate the Declaration into concrete action.

News Release    In: AAAS EurekaAlert

Protecting forests and changing agricultural practices are essential, cost-effective actions to prevent pandemics..... The report from the International Scientific Task Force to Prevent Pandemics at the Source makes the case that investments in outbreak control, such as diagnostic tests, drugs and vaccines, are critical but inadequate to address pandemic risk. ....... A key recommendation from the task force calls for leveraging investments in healthcare system strengthening and One Health to jointly advance conservation, animal and human health, and spillover prevention.

Author: Frank Berthe   In: Global Cause

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has already cost the world millions of lives and trillions of dollars. It did not have to be this way.

Authors:  Laura Kahn, Richard Sefiman  In: IMPAKTER

Vaccinating animals is a more cost-effective and humane approach to disease control than waiting for sick animals to spread their microbes to humans. The One Health approach uses this strategy to control the spread of zoonotic diseases…….. As another example, from 2007-2009, a deadly Q fever outbreak causing disease in sheep and goats in the Netherlands spread to humans. A vaccine against the disease was administered to the animals. It was the first time that a vaccine in animals was used to prevent Q fever in humans…. These examples illustrate that the One Health nexus has existed between animals and humans long before COVID-19.

Author: Gloria Bachman, MD, MMS   In:  News, One Health Initiative website

But, even more important, what we have learned is that our approach to ensuring human, animal, plant and environmental wellness cannot occur in silos. Teams of scientists, health care providers and policy makers must come together to develop best solutions for all of the issues that confront us---spanning from global warming to prevention of invasive species that destroy crops or transmit diseases to humans and other animals. With this framework, the New Jersey One Health Steering Committee worked with the NJ legislation to provide the evidence for and encourage them to commence a multidisciplinary One Health task force committee. The task force will facilitate discussion among all disciplines such that short- and long-term solutions that promote a natural balance in nature and better health for all will result.

Author: Michelle Grundahl  In: The Pandora Report

NBSB recommended that federal departments, public and private research institutions, and private sector organizations should engage in One Health collaborations to protect against emerging human and animal disease risks. A One Health approach would continuously assess emerging human and animal disease risks by using research and predictive data capabilities (based on artificial intelligence) to assess patterns of animal, agricultural, and human health.

Author: Shelby Vittek    In: Modern Farmer

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought up many questions about the future of animal agriculture………….. Worldwide, researchers are taking several approaches in an effort to prevent a major zoonotic disease outbreak in the near future. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently launched the “One Health High-Level Expert Panel” to improve our understanding of how diseases with the potential to trigger pandemics emerge and spread. Last week, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced it would provide up to $10 million in funds in the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP) to support projects that will enhance plans to improve animal disease outbreaks… In Oklahoma, a very livestock-centric state, a new center is already preparing for the next one. Launched in October 2020, the Oklahoma Pandemic Center for Innovation and Excellence (OPCIE), is taking a “one health” approach, bringing agriculture, human and animal health experts together to research diseases—zoonotic and beyond—and public health responses.

Authors: Richard Seifman, Bruce Kaplan     In: IMPAKTER

It is fair to say that the wisdom of One Health has benefitted from the COVID pandemic, which itself has resulted in an unprecedented common cause by the G7 leaders who have already announced support for vaccine financing and grants in the order of one billion vaccines.  This is unquestionably a highly welcome act of solidarity with all countries……But it is the short-term answer: This is looking at the present urgency of containing the spread of COVID-19 and its variants without recognizing that the COVID-19 pandemic is the flashing red light to potential future epidemics or pandemics.

Author: Catherine Cheney   In: devex

In 2016 — years before the COVID-19 pandemic — Cambodia launched a toll-free hotline to enlist the public in monitoring and tracking the spread of disease among both humans and animals….People can call 115 to report outbreak signals, such as unexplained sickness in their chickens that could be bird flu — which can also infect people…..The 115 hotline and many tools like it emerged from EpiHack, an epidemiology “hackathon” that [the non-profit organization] Ending Pandemics supports. Another EpiHack project is Participatory One Health Digital Disease Detection (PODD) which allows volunteers in Thailand to report unusual disease events.

In: OnuItalia

“We want to invest in the ‘One Health’ approach, that is, considering humans, animals and the environment as a whole ecosystem, in order to respond to the health emergencies of today and tomorrow”. Strengthening public health on a global scale, preventing future pandemics and improving the response to the current one through research and vaccines are the Summit’s core topics. ....."

Authors:  Vanda Felbab-Brown and Catherine Semcer In: The Hill

Zoonotic diseases that spill from animals to humans are emerging with an ever-increasing speed every few years. Between SARS in 2002 and COVID-19, there were epidemics of MERS, ebola, Zika and the avian and swine flus. Another global crisis stemming from zoonotic disease can easily break out in the years to come……Our destruction of nature is at the root of such crises. When animal species are pushed into smaller and smaller spaces, such as through deforestation, they pass pathogens to each other, and then to humans, livestock and pets. This potentially catastrophic cycle accounts for 30 percent of emerging zoonoses. 

Author: Debapriya Mukherjee     In:  The Statesman, New Delhi, India

A future pandemic could be worse than the ongoing crisis because we are pushing nature to its limits by destroying and degrading amazingly diverse ecosystems, like tropical forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, coral reefs and many more and ultimately removing natural buffers and expanding the interface between wildlife and people where pandemics emerge.

Blog Post and Podcast: The Wilson Center’s Ground Truth Briefing held a conversation with experts who have been tracking the connections between animal, ecosystem, human health, and security, and discussed what steps policymakers need to take to mitigate the next global pandemic.

Authors: Carlos G. das Neves and Gaute Lenvik

Can we then prevent them or limit their harmful effects?     Scientists around the world are united in answering yes, it is possible! However, it will require an interdisciplinary and holistic effort recognizing the interaction of all forms of life. The "One Health"-approach considers this by looking at public health, animal health and the environment as a whole. Without good animal health, we cannot ensure human health, and without healthy ecosystems, both humans and animals stand to suffer.

Hindustan Times, New Delhi, India

“The ‘One Health’ approach recognises that people's health is closely connected with animals' health,” he said at the symposium. “Covid19 demonstrates the rapid spread of novel pathogens which can have a significant impact on the global economy. Preparedness for and mitigation of such events require a 'One Health' approach."

Author: Michael Penn    In:  Duke University School of Medicine 'Magnify: A Closer Look'

Gray and Wang are among a community of scientists who say we could do a better job anticipating new viral threats by paying more attention to the animals that harbor them. An approach known as One Health seeks to bridge the worlds of human, animal and environmental health by studying them as one interconnected system. If viruses aren’t constrained by the boundaries of the natural world, One Health argues, neither should our efforts to understand them.

Author: Beatrice Jin     In:  Politico

U.S. policymakers have spent trillions of dollars to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. But the answer to preventing the next pandemic altogether lies elsewhere...... and it would have cost 10 times less to prevent it.

Authors: Rajib Dasgupta and Raman Muthusamy    In: The Indian EXPRESS

'One Health' initiatives, by their multidisciplinary nature, entail working across ministries and navigating tacit institutional hierarchies and allocating leadership roles. This holistic view of health is important in the post-pandemic scenario.

“.....it is essential not to blame any given wildlife species, but instead understand how the interface between wildlife, domestic animals and humans promote these kinds of problems. Indeed, there is strong evidence that intact ecosystems aid in preventing these sorts of pathogen spillovers from wildlife to humans (dilution effect). ….The Wildlife Disease Association is strongly committed to acquiring, disseminating, and applying knowledge on the health of wild animals, to promoting biodiversity, ecosystem health and nature-based solutions to One Health challenges.”

Authors:  Multiple    In:  TimesLIVE

(Authors) believe that nations should work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response. .... The main goal of this treaty would be to foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. .......

It would also include recognition of a “One Health” approach that connects the health of humans, animals and our planet. And such a treaty should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system and with its rules and norms.

Radio Interview of Dr. Greg Gray       On: WWL First News with Tommy Tucker

Author: Ulrich Laaser     In:  IMPAKTER

"....In this article, I explore the most important change that needs to be made and that involves addressing 21st Century education challenges in a One Health manner........The starting point is for us to recognize that the interface between animal-human-environmental health is not rhetoric but reality. The concept of One Health, which once sat on the periphery of the academic world, has now taken full center. This means that civil society, political decision processes, and the private sector need to embrace this fundamental notion."

Authors:  Kaplan B,    Seifman R       In:  IMPAKTER

Balancing the One Health Tripartite Equation

"WHO - We have all heard of the WHO, created in 1948 in its present form as a specialized agency of the United Nations, responsible for international public health……  its two-year budget for 2020-2021 is over $5.8 billion. WHO has a total staff….. of roughly 7,000 people.

FAO - FAO’s input is notable since this is a large United Nations technical agency with a substantial biennial budget (over $2.6 billion from assessed and voluntary contributions) and over 4,000 staff, tasked with a multifaceted mandate to lead international efforts to defeat hunger, improve nutrition, and food security, in short, a very diverse and challenging assignment.

OIE - Founded in 1924 to fight animal diseases at the global level, it (OIE) is an intergovernmental organization responsible for explicitly improving animal health worldwide. It is independent of the United Nations and has an annual assessed budget …………of approximately US $36 million    … OIE staff is equally modest: approximately 120 people at its Paris headquarters and 15 staff in regional offices.”

We need to make better use of the OIE to enable it to fulfill its defined animal health mission, including unique contributions to One Health interdisciplinary collaborations and developmental research. 

Author: Thomas Friedman    In:  New York Times

Imagine that in December 2019 country X had a nuclear accident — a missile test gone awry. It resulted in a small nuclear explosion that sent a cloud of radioactivity around the world, causing 2.66 million deaths, plus trillions of dollars in health care costs and lost commerce that nearly triggered a global depression. What do you think we’d be talking about today?.....We’d be discussing a new global regime of nuclear weapons safety protocols to try to make sure it never happened again.

Well, we just had the natural world equivalent of such a nuclear accident. It is widely suspected that a pathogen in a bat jumped to another animal to a human in China and then hopped onto the globalization express, causing extraordinary suffering and trillions of dollars in damage. And this happened after several decades of other pandemics set off by unhealthy human interactions with wildlife — with bats or civets in the case of Ebola and SARS-CoV-1 and most likely chimps in the case of H.I.V.

As we have just hit the one-year mark since the World Health Organization declared SARS-CoV-2 — the pathogen that causes Covid-19 — a pandemic, it’s appropriate to ask what smart collective action are we pursuing to prevent this from ever happening again.

Interview by Jessica Patrick    On:  WRAL.com

Researchers from Duke University discussed transmission of diseases from wild animals to humans and what can be done to prevent future pandemics.

Author:  Bruce Kaplan        In: The Innovation Platform Issue 5 (InnovationNewsNetwork.com)

The One Health Initiative’s Dr Bruce Kaplan argues that it is now time for a One Health approach to combat both COVID-19 and any future pandemics.

Video:  Reporter Will Carr     ABC News

ABC News’ Will Carr reports from the San Diego Zoo, where eight gorillas recently came down with COVID-19, as they explore potential vaccinations to prevent further outbreaks.

Author: Scott Nolen   In:  Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA)

“The very real threat from these zoonotic diseases is practically shouting at us that a one-health approach is essential,”  Bruce Kaplan

Veterinarians had already been through a coronavirus pandemic prior to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus (another coronavirus) has plagued swine operations in Europe and Asia for three decades, but in 2013, the virus arrived in the United States, infecting millions of immunologically naive pigs. By the time the PED outbreak was contained the following year, the virus had already spread to 29 U.S. states, killing an estimated 7 million pigs.   ..........  During the early months of 2020, as another novel coronavirus was burning across the planet, veterinarians weren’t consulted regarding their experiences with managing this particularly nasty family of viruses in animal populations. “No one from the human medicine side of things thought to reach out to ask, ‘How did you stop the PED epidemic? How useful were vaccines? What should we do to try to stop the spread of COVID?’” Dr. Hungerford said. “There are a lot of lessons here.”

Author:   Smriti Mallapaty     In: Nature

Scientists are monitoring pets, livestock and wildlife to work out where SARS-CoV-2 could hide, and whether it could resurge.

Author:  Laura Kahn    In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

"We need to reassess what we value. The natural world is essential for our health and well-being, but we don’t value it properly. Instead, we exploit it until it bites us back. We must change our values if we want to prevent the next pandemic. ........ Maintaining a better grasp of ecological health around the world could help governments take necessary steps to preserve ecosystems and promote sustainable development. Preventing the next pandemic may depend on us doing so. "

Author: Dr. Jonathan Chan    In:  ABC News

Epstein explained that the COVID virus is so widespread and so many people are infected that there is a significant possibility that wildlife could be exposed through the environment, contaminated waste water or direct contact with humans.

Authors: Sharon Calvin, Andrea Osborn   In: Blog Post, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Reported by: Althea Legaspi     In:  Rolling Stone

“The truth is if we’re not very careful, the next pandemic could well be even worse”

This statement includes an overview of a Task Force (pp 20-21) assigned to  Investigate Origins, Early Spread of the Pandemic, and One Health Solutions to Future Pandemic Threats.

In order to prevent future pandemics, it is essential to understand the origins and emergence of COVID-19 and to undertake a One Health approach for preserving and enhancing ecosystem and human health. The third of three Task Force objectives is to identify One Health solutions to future pandemic threats.

Webcast hosted by The Nation.com

Bringing together experts from across disciplines, One Health is an international movement that starts from the presumption that the fate of humans is intimately connected with those of wild animals and the ecosystems on which we all depend. The recognition of this reality makes One Health both a powerful antidote to anti-science ethos and a cutting-edge vision of 21st century global health. It is one of our last, best hopes for preventing a pandemic worse than Covid-19. .... Our future may depend on it. Investigative reporter Jimmy Tobias spent many months researching One Health for his recent Nation cover story.

By: Stephanie Stone, Scripps National Correspondent         In: Pix11, New York

Authors: Wingard J, Belajcic S, Samal M, Rock K, Custodio ML, Heise H, Fiennes A, Machalaba C, Aguirre AA

This report takes a critical look at the national legal context of managing zoonotic diseases, sampling 38 jurisdictions and asking; what have nations already done with their laws that support the monitoring and prevention of disease emergence that comes from wildlife? In particular, it examines how ten different areas of law respond to this need. In addition to the main findings, the authors provide a summary of the legal challenges and the many opportunities for immediate action.

Author: Seifman R    In:  IMPAKTER

In sum, to successfully predict, prevent and contain pandemics, we need it all: A greater knowledge of unknown viruses that are potentially highly dangerous to humans, including virus mapping; more and sustained research into pandemics, including the development of appropriate tools and innovations to share as we are now doing with COVID-19; and recognition of the importance of the interface between humans, animals, and the environment – in other words, using a One Health approach to virus mapping and pandemics preparedness.

Author not stated        In:  The Economic Times