Posted in Editorial Analysis, GS 2, Social Justice

One Health approach

 September 20, 2023  Leave a comment

Syllabus:
Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources(GS2)
Source:
The Hindu,14/09/2023
Context:
The Nipah virus is wreaking havoc in Kozhikode, the fourth outbreak of the disease in Kerala over the last five years. In this scenario, a unified One Health Approach is necessary.

Content

One Health Approach:

  • One Health’ is an integrated, unifying approach to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and the environment.
  • It is particularly important to prevent, predict, detect, and respond to global health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The approach mobilizes multiple sectors, disciplines and communities at varying levels of society to work together.
  • This way, new and better ideas are developed that address root causes and create long-term, sustainable solutions.
  • The One Health approach is particularly relevant for food and water safety, nutrition, the control of zoonoses (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as flu, rabies and Rift Valley fever), pollution management, and combating antimicrobial resistance (the emergence of microbes that are resistant to antibiotic therapy).
  • The core of the One Health approach is rooted in acknowledging and understanding the interdependence of human and natural systems to obtain optimal health for people, animals and the environment.

Why is One Health important?

ONE Health is not only about zoonotic diseases but also other issues like:

  • Antibiotic Resistance: Antibiotic-resistant germs can quickly spread through communities, the food supply, healthcare facilities, and the environment (soil, water), making it harder to treat certain infections in animals and people.
  • Food Safety and Security: Diseases in food animals can threaten food supplies, livelihoods, and economies.
  • Vector-borne diseases: Vector-borne diseases are on the rise with warmer temperatures and expanded mosquito and tick habitats. Vectors are mosquitoes, ticks and fleas that spread disease. A person who gets bitten by a vector and gets sick has a vector-borne disease.
  • Mental Health: The human-animal bond can help improve mental well-being.
  • Environmental Contamination: Contamination of water used for drinking, recreation, and more can make people and animals sick.

Benefits of One Health Approach:

  • Reduce potential threats at the human-animal-environment interface to control diseases that spread between animals and humans.
  • Tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
  • Ensure food safety
  • Prevent environment-related health threats to humans and animals
  • Protect biodiversity
  • Protect global health security

One Health approach to contain zoonotic diseases:

  • Interdisciplinary Approach: Collaboration between doctors, veterinarians, environmental scientists, and public health professionals.
  • Policy Integration: Coordination between various ministries and departments at both the central and state levels.
  • Infrastructure Development: Laboratories for diagnosing diseases that can spread from animals to humans and vice versa, and systems for reporting and responding to such diseases.
  • Capacity Building: Training program and inclusion of One Health concepts in the curriculum of medical, veterinary, and environmental science courses.
  • Research: To understand the dynamics of diseases at the human-animal-environment interface and to develop strategies for their prevention and control.
  • Community Engagement: Communities are often at the frontline of disease outbreaks. Community Engagement could involve raising awareness about zoonotic diseases and promoting practices that reduce the risk of their transmission.
  • International Collaboration: International collaboration is crucial for sharing information about disease outbreaks and coordinating response efforts.
  • Funding: Adequate funding needs to be allocated for One Health initiatives.
  • Monitoring and Evaluation: There needs to be a system for monitoring and evaluating One Health initiatives to assess their effectiveness and make necessary adjustments.

Challenges:

  • Lack of a policy framework that ratifies the ‘One Health’ approach in development and health policies is a major hurdle.
  • Inadequate coordination on food safety at slaughter, distribution, and retail facilities.
  • Lack of information sharing between human and animal health institutions.
  • Challenges pertaining to manpower shortages in the health sector.
  • Lack of a single agency or framework that embraces all interdisciplinary sectorial players under a single umbrella to carry forward the ‘One Health’ agenda.
  • Ineffective engagement of civil society and inefficient community participation is another challenge.
  • Extensive and irrational use of antibiotics, especially in the livestock sector for increasing yield and preventing diseases, causes emergence and selection of resistant pathogens. These spread through animal-human interaction or food chain

Govt initiatives:

  • The National Standing Committee on Zoonoses was formed in 2007. The objective of this committee was to provide the Union and the State governments guidance and recommendations on challenges related to zoonoses.
  • The Food Safety and Standard Act: It stipulates the limits for contaminants, naturally occurring toxic materials, antibiotic residues, pesticides, heavy metals, veterinary drug residues, etc.,
  • Government-initiated control programs for zoonotic and highly communicable diseases such as rabies, brucellosis and foot-and-mouth disease.
  • Centre for One Health Division is working in coordination with all stakeholders to promote health and quality of life by undertaking activities necessary for prevention and control of Zoonotic Diseases with the “One Health” approach.
  • One Health Consortium:The aim of this consortium is to study the prevalence of ten selected zoonotic diseases and five trans-boundary animal diseases and analyze risks so as to provide forewarning to stakeholders.
  • “Make in India” initiative: It supports the development of medical equipment, drug, vaccines, and technology innovations that can be used to address zoonotic diseases.
  • National One Health Mission : India is preparing for National One Health Mission.It includes Implementing integrated disease surveillance within and across human, animal, and environmental sectors to address communicable diseases of zoonotic, transboundary animal diseases and diseases of epidemic/pandemic potential.

Way Forward:

  • Surveillance of animal health should be strictly ensured. It is crucial to track the globally emerging new outbreaks.
  • There should be a strong interdisciplinary network of partners to improve surveillance and monitoring.
  • The awareness of farmers, livestock managers, and environmentalists should be increased regarding the One Health approach and zoonotic diseases.
  • A national disease registry of zoonotic diseases needs to be developed.
  • Increased use of technology to improve the living environment of animals and monitoring and treatment of diseases should be motivated.
  • Prevention through increased vaccination coverage should be targeted.
  • Based on the learning from the use of One Health approach to combat zoonotic diseases globally, best practices need to be developed and adopted.

Conclusion:

The One Health concept is not new but its importance to address the complex health and environmental challenges has become more prominent in recent years.

This is because potential solutions to these problems can only be understood when human, animal, and environmental health questions are evaluated in an integrated and holistic manner rather than in siloed approaches.

Related topics

Manhattan Principles:

 “Manhattan Principles” urge world leaders, civil society, the global health community, and institutions of science to holistically approach the prevention of epidemic/epizootic disease and the maintenance of ecosystem integrity by:

  • Recognizing the link between human, domestic animal, and wildlife health, and the threat disease poses to people, their food supplies and economies, and the biodiversity essential to maintaining the healthy environments and functioning ecosystems.
  • Recognizing that decisions regarding land and water use have real implications for health.
  • Including wildlife health science as an essential component of global disease prevention, surveillance, monitoring, control, and mitigation.
  • Recognizing that human health programs can greatly contribute to conservation efforts.
  • Devising adaptive, holistic, and forward-looking approaches to the prevention, surveillance, monitoring, control, and mitigation of emerging and resurging diseases that fully account for the complex interconnections among species.
  • Seeking opportunities to fully integrate biodiversity conservation perspectives and human needs (including those related to domestic animal health) when developing solutions to infectious disease threats.
  • Reducing demand for and better regulating the international live wildlife and bushmeat trade, not only to protect wildlife populations but to lessen the risks of disease movement, cross species transmission, and the development of novel pathogen-host relationships.
  • Restricting the mass culling of free-ranging wildlife species for disease control to situations where there is a multidisciplinary, international scientific consensus that a wildlife population poses an urgent, significant threat to human health, food security, or wildlife health more broadly.
  • Increasing investment in the global human and animal health infrastructure commensurate with the serious nature of emerging and resurging disease threats to people, domestic animals and wildlife.
  • Forming collaborative relationships among governments, local people, and the private and public (i.e. non-profit) sectors.
  • Providing adequate resources and support for global wildlife health surveillance networks that exchange disease information with the public health and agricultural animal health communities.
  • Investing in educating and raising awareness among the world’s people and in influencing the policy process.

One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022 – 2026)

  • The One Health Joint Plan of Action was launched by the Quadripartite – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE).
  • This first joint plan on One Health aims to create a framework to integrate systems and capacity so that we can collectively better prevent, predict, detect, and respond to health threats.
  • This initiative seeks to improve the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment, while contributing to sustainable development.
  • The One Health Joint Plan of Action, developed through a participatory process, provides a set of activities that aim to strengthen collaboration, communication, capacity building, and coordination across all sectors responsible for addressing health concerns at the human-animal-plant-environment interface.

Reference

Practice Question
Explain the concept of the One Health approach and its significance in managing zoonotic diseases.

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