ONE HEALTH APPROACH

Subject: Governance

Context: The battle against COVID-19 should also be used as an opportunity to meet India’s ‘One Health’ targets.

Concept:

One Health

OneHealth is an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.
The areas of work in which a One Health approach is particularly relevant include food safety, the control of zoonotic diseases (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as flu, rabies and Rift Valley Fever), and combating antibiotic resistance (when bacteria change after being exposed to antibiotics and become more difficult to treat).
Although OneHealth, as a conceptual entity, emerged relatively recently, a stellar example of OneHealth being operationalised in the field was seen in India in the late 1950s.

Zoonotic Diseases

The diseases, which “spillover” from animals to humans are referred to as zoonotic diseases
They represent more than 60% of emerging infectious diseases worldwide.
The destruction of the natural environment, globalised trade and travel and industrialised food production systems have created numerous pathways for new pathogens to jump between animals and humans.