22 Sep, 2023
Imagine our world as a vast jigsaw puzzle, with people, animals, plants, and their shared environment – every piece matters. One Health acts as the glue ensuring these pieces fit seamlessly while interacting with one another on a daily basis. While it may sound complex at first, it has many connections with our everyday life, given that the approach aims to improve our health and well-being, as well as that of other living creatures and their shared environment.
One Health is an integrated approach aiming to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. It recognises the interdependence of human, animal, plant, and environmental health.
In 2023, with India hosting the G20 Summit, the One Health approach gained prominence on the global political stage, garnering interest among different stakeholders and sectors.
As our world rapidly transforms due to global travel and changing lifestyles, our environment faces unprecedented challenges. Changes in the natural environment have led to more human-wildlife contacts, thereby increasing the risk of disease transmission between humans and animals, the so-called zoonotic diseases — and also between wildlife and domesticated livestock. Also, the transmission of diseases through vectors, such as mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, mites, flies, etc., can increase when environmental conditions change. For example, an increase in temperature due to climate change can make it possible for mosquitoes from tropical and subtropical regions to spread to previously colder regions. In regions where winters get milder, more ticks can survive, which can, in turn, lead to an increase in tick-borne diseases in the next summer. Flooding of cities, due to increasing rainfalls and poor urban planning, can lead to a rise in leptospirosis cases among the population when the bacteria responsible for this disease are spread by the water, causing liver and kidney problems or even encephalitis in infected people.
In addition, foodstuffs can become a source of human infections if transmittable diseases of livestock aren’t adequately managed.
Many of these zoonotic and vector-borne diseases can have grave consequences for people and animals, leading to economic loss due to prolonged illness and death.
Another example where the health of both humans and animals are concerned, is the overuse or inadequate use of antimicrobial substances. Despite being an essential part of modern medicine, antibiotics and other antimicrobial substances can pose a risk if used incorrectly because they can lead to resistant microorganisms. These, in turn, are harder to treat if they happen to infect another person or animal and can even transmit their new superpower to other microorganisms. In the last decades, the increase in resistance of microbes became notable, leading to economic loss and deaths in humans and animals that couldn’t be saved by formerly effective medicine.
Furthermore, environmental pollution, e.g., by pesticides and artificial fertilizers in farming, chemical fertilizers in aquaculture, or microplastic pollution through the excessive use of plastic and improper disposal, has a negative impact on human, animal, and environmental health.
By applying the One Health approach, multiple stakeholders and sectors can collaborate to develop appropriate solutions to improve all three dimensions of health, reach sector goals and contribute to a sustainable development.
Like many other countries, India embraces the One Health approach. There are initiatives underway, e.g., in various Ministries of the Government of India and in other institutions. Several of these initiatives are implemented in cooperation with international organizations. Recently, the high-level National One Health Mission has been created. It intends to coordinate, support, and integrate all existing One Health activities in the country and fill gaps where appropriate.
One of the projects within the scope of international cooperation is the GIZ project on 'One Health and Agroecology', financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). This project is being implemented in cooperation with the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and other relevant stakeholders.
This project aims to strengthen cooperation among various stakeholders, including ministries, local communities, and training institutions, so that they can reduce risks to human, animal, and environmental health. The focus areas include:
Thereby, the project is not just about health, it also contributes to the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).
The centrepiece of One Health is the cooperation between sectors and stakeholders. And this goes far beyond the animal and human health sector. It also concerns food production, forest management, infrastructure and urban planning, education, nature conservation inside and outside of protected areas – and many more.
Together we can avoid the transmission of diseases, which can have profound impacts on our health and economies, both at an individual and global level. We can decrease environmental pollution to contribute to clean and healthy air, water, and soil which are the basis of so many productive sectors and for our daily life. We can improve sustainable food production and contribute to food security and safety.
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