One Health Movement News / One Health Topics 'in' the News

The Gates Foundation says responding to deadly outbreaks isn’t its forte. But the Ebola crisis showed just how much global public health depends on the foundation.

Join Abt Associates and distinguished speakers for a discussion on the causes and consequences of infectious disease pandemics.

"Throughout the last few decades, diseases that spill over from animals to humans have been on the rise. What’s behind their increase, and can we do anything to combat these dangerous foes? Join scientists as they investigate the rise of spillover viruses like Zika, Ebola and Nipah, and learn what science can do to anticipate and prevent epidemics around the world."

"Spillover — Zika, Ebola & Beyond is a harrowing drama that follows scientists into the world's hot zones in a search for answers. And it does so while providing much needed scientific context for the most recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks. Battle-hardened health workers and survivors share their untold stories, such as how a courageous band of Nigerians jumped into the breach to stop Ebola from turning into a truly global pandemic."

In 2015, a mysterious virus, eventually identified as Zika, first appeared in Brazil, flooding clinics with patients. Health care workers and researchers working in Brazil made a startling connection between the increase in prenatal Zika virus infections and the growing number of babies born with microcephaly and other devastating birth defects. The year before, as the world watched in horror, the Ebola virus tore through the heart of West Africa, leaving some 12,000 dead in its wake. The outbreak was historic: ten times worse than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. And beyond the headlines, out of the spotlight, other threats were unfolding at the same time: legions of viruses were continuing their march around the globe, largely unreported. Nipah. Chikungunya. MERS. All are diseases caused by viruses that reside in animals and spill over into humans. Over the last half century, the number of spillover diseases has increased rapidly. What's behind the rise in spillover viruses? What can we do to stop them? And what have we learned from the ultimate containment of Ebola?

Airing August 3, 2016 10 p.m. Eastern, Press Release  Film Website  Film Trailer

A black, cloud-like mass billows from a cave on a mountainside in Tao Pun, Thailand. The dark shape rises skyward, shifts, and pivots as the sun sets behind the golden spires of a nearby Buddhist monastery and the green rice fields of western Thailand.

It's not smoke emerging from the cave, but Thailand's largest bat colony, embarking on its nightly search for a tasty meal of insects. And just below the mouth of the cave is a team of Thai scientists, waiting to catch some of the bats as they depart.

Excerpt: "

WHO, partners and affected countries are stepping up planning for how to use an Ebola vaccine in response to an outbreak.

The Ebola outbreak that struck Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in 2014 prompted the search, on an exceptionally accelerated schedule, for a vaccine to prevent the disease.

Although there has been more than one promising candidate, the vesicular stomatitis virus-ebola virus (VSV-EBOV) vaccine was selected based on an algorithm produced by the WHO Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee on Ebola Experimental Interventions for the critical Phase III trial in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The committee considered various parameters, including efficacy in non-human primates the ability to provoke an immune response in humans in the early days after vaccination, and availability."

"U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has introduced legislation that would establish a coordinated national plan to fight diseases that come from animal sources, including Zika and Ebola.

The One Health Act of 2016 would charge the nation's agencies—from the Centers for Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—to work together on identifying specific goals and priorities to help understand, prevent, and respond to animal disease outbreaks."