A ‘One Health’ Approach That Targets People, Animals

Context: Covid-19 pandemic had re-opened the necessity and scope of the One Health approach.

About One Health

• Definition: One Health is an integrated approach to health encompassing human health, animal health and environmental health.
• Primary areas of work: Food security, control of zoonotic resistance and combating antibiotic resistance.

• High prevalence of zoonotic diseases: More than two-thirds of existing and emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic (can be transferred between animals and humans, and vice versa).
  • Potential threat:7 million viruses circulating in wildlife and many likely to be zoonotic
• Anthropozoonotic infections: Gets transferred from humans to animals.
• Rising viral outbreaks: Covid-19, Nipah virus, Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Avian Influenza.
• Economic costs: According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, rabies costs the global economy approximately $6 billion annually.

India’s One Health framework: India’s ‘One Health’ vision derives its blueprint from the agreement between the tripartite-plus alliance comprising the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the WHO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — a global initiative supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank under the overarching goal of contributing to ‘One World, One Health’.

• Establishment of National Standing Committee on Zoonoses in the 1980s.
• Centre for One Health at Nagpur: Funds sanctioned in 2021.
• The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD): establish the ‘One Health’ unit and has helped in the formulation of the National Action Plan for Eliminating Dog Mediated Rabies.
• The National Animal Disease Control Programme:13,343 crore sanctioned for Foot and Mouth disease and Brucellosis control.
• Assistance to States for Control of Animal Diseases (ASCAD): Capacity building for veterinarians and upgrading animal health diagnostic system, vaccination against livestock diseases and backyard poultry. 

Key Challenges

• Veterinary manpower shortages
• Lack of information sharing: Between human and animal health institutions
• Inadequate coordination: On food safety at slaughter, distribution, and retail facilities.

Way forward

• Consolidating existing animal health and disease surveillance systems: Information Network for Animal Productivity and Health and the National Animal Disease Reporting System.
• Developing best-practice guidelines: For informal market and slaughterhouse operation – inspections, disease prevalence assessments.
• Creating mechanisms to operationalise ‘One Health’: At every stage down to village level.