Conclusions

Large percentages of coronaviruses were detected in bats and rodents at sites where people have close contact and interact with wildlife including sub-interfaces along wildlife trade chains, wildlife farms, and artificial bat roosts where bat guano is collected for use as fertilizer. The high proportion of coronavirus positive samples at these human-wildlife interfaces highlights the potential for human exposure to wildlife origin coronaviruses. The observed viral amplification along the wildlife trade supply chain for human consumption, illustrated by the field rat trade in this study, likely resulted from the admixing of different species or sub-populations, and the close confinement of stressed live animals. This highlights the potential for coronavirus (and other virus) shedding and amplification along other wildlife supply chains (e.g., civets, pangolins) where similarly large numbers of animals are collected from a wide range of locations, transported, and confined. The detections of rodent, bat, and avian coronaviruses confirm concerns about productions systems and supply chains that increase contact between wildlife and domestic species. Livestock and people living in close contact with rodents, bats, and birds shedding coronaviruses provides opportunities for intra- and inter-species transmission and potential recombination of coronaviruses.

Human behavior is facilitating the spillover of viruses, such as coronavirus, from animals to people. The wildlife trade supply chain from the field to restaurant and end consumer provides multiple opportunities for such spillover events to occur [1]. Since the SARS outbreak, broad scientific consensus exists that long term, structural changes, and wildlife trade and market closures will be required to prevent future epidemics. To minimize the public health risks of viral disease emergence from the consumption of wildlife and to safeguard livestock-based production systems, we recommend precautionary measures that restrict the killing, commercial breeding, transport, buying, selling, storage, processing and consuming of wild animals. The time has come for the global community to collectively assume responsibility through targeted wildlife trade reform. The world must also increase vigilance through building and improving detection capacity; actively conducting surveillance to detect and characterize coronaviruses in humans, wildlife, and livestock; and to inform human behaviors in order to reduce zoonotic viral transmission to humans. The more opportunities we provide for humans to come into direct contact with a multitude of wildlife species, the higher the likelihood of another spillover event. The costs of inaction are astronomically high and we must ensure that future food production and security is sustainable, just, and supports global health.

Zoonotic diseases threaten the US food supply and human health as well as animal health, writes American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) President Dr. Douglas Kratt. He says that the pandemic relief package being negotiated by Congress should include $300 million to bolster programs aimed at animal disease preparedness and prevention, he adds…

ISBN 978-3-03921-295-8 (Pbk); ISBN 978-3-03921-296-5 (PDF)
https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03921-296-5
© 2019 by the authors; CC BY-NC-ND licence

John Mackenzie  and Martyn Jeggo (Eds.)

“DEAR READERS: A rise in zoonotic (animal-to-human) diseases is being driven by environmental degradation, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Program and the International Livestock Research Institute. The report cites rising demand for animal protein, intensive farming practices, exploitation of wildlife and climate change among key factors. The authors suggest adopting a One Health approach, which would unite public health, veterinary and environmental experts to respond to and prevent zoonotic disease outbreaks. (UN News, 7/6)

If preventive veterinary medicine had been applied in China and other countries to better monitor live animal markets and wild and domestic animal factory farms, in my professional opinion, this COVID-19 pandemic would have been much less likely to occur.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put in bold relief how the veterinary and medical professions, and associated public health services internationally, have failed to promote the first medicine: disease prevention. This responsibility has been corrupted by pecuniary interests and an increasingly distorted, dispirited and mechanistic perception of health, which is not simply the absence of disease. The human medical profession may be faulted for not engaging effectively in the politics of human overpopulation and ecologically damaging and unhealthful dietary choices. But many, along with veterinarians and other health care professionals and biological scientists, are rallying under the banner of One Health. This concept is not new, and enjoyed stronger endorsement and support in decades prior to the advent of clinical specialization in human and veterinary medicine. Steps to achieving the end point of this concept are well articulated by the One Health Initiative at onehealthinitiative.com.”

• 
  Volume 18, Issue 6

  Pages: 309-364

  August 2020

“In their MEDICC Review Perspective, Galindo-Santana and colleagues highlight the challenges presented by anti-vaccination groups, stressing that immunization is an essential cost-effective preventive measure that promotes population health.[1] In 2019, WHO identified vaccine hesitancy, fragile and vulnerable settings and weak primary health care as 3 of 10 main global health threats. Close attention to these threats can detect potential areas of missed opportunities for immunization across populations and mitigate risk of preventable diseases. …

… Third, primary health care centers can promote holistic health through the One Health concept, which describes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, while dispelling myths and fostering provider–patient rapport and acceptance of evidence-based vaccination schedules.

Regional action for widespread adoption of evidence-based vaccination schedules is essential to safeguard population health. By prioritizing community-based research, health capacity building and the One Health concept, nations can accelerate progress to achieving high immunization coverage through Sustainable Development Goal targets 3.8 and 3.b.”

By co-authors:

Bienvenido A. Veras-Estévez MD MPH (bienvenido.veras@ucateci.edu.do), Faculty of Health Sciences, Catholic University of the Cibao, La Vega, Dominican Republic.
*Helena J. Chapman MD MPH PhD, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1999-6453

*Note: Physician, Dr. Chapman is a member of the One Health Initiative team https://onehealthinitiative.com/contact/.

“The origins of COVID-19 and other recent zoonotic epidemics link the research themes of human, animal and environment health: the three tenets of One Health. CGIAR researchers are using integrated modeling to provide policy recommendations and address urgent issues on the role of agriculture in spreading zoonoses and how we can avoid future crossover events. …”

 August: The One Health Approach Could Become US Policy

https://mailchi.mp/79b3a58c7705/oh-newsletter-august-issue

… ” Prof Burt, whose research interests and expertise include the investigation of viruses of zoonotic origin, and/or those transmitted by mosquitoes and ticks that impact human and/or animal well-being – using a One Health approach – says the study was a collaborative effort between scientists with expertise in a wide range of disciplines, including biological anthropology, genetics, primatology, molecular biology, and virology.

“The concept of One Health encourages collaboration between multiple disciplines, promoting the concept that the interaction between humans, animals, and the environment has an impact on the health of people, animals, plants, and the environment. …

“Now we must become more proactive to avoid another pandemic and address endemic zoonotic diseases,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). “This means recognizing that human health, animal health and planetary health cannot be separated, and planning our responses accordingly.”

But Anderson believes we also must stop thinking of human health separately from animal health and environmental health.

“Part of this process is the urgent adoption of integrated human, animal and environmental health expertise and policy – a One Health approach. One Health is not new, but uneven uptake and institutional support means it hasn’t hit its potential. The weakest link in the chain is environmental health. We have to fix this.”

So the coronavirus pandemic offers vital lessons for future threats.

“The U.S. has fared worse than other countries not because it lacked information or funding,” said Dr. Ali S. Khan, director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “but because it failed to learn the lessons of the last outbreaks.”

“For a century, two new viruses per year have spilled from their natural hosts into humans (1). The MERS, SARS, and 2009 H1N1 epidemics, and the HIV and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemics, testify to their damage. Zoonotic viruses infect people directly most often when they handle live primates, bats, and other wildlife (or their meat) or indirectly from farm animals such as chickens and pigs. The risks are higher than ever (2, 3) as increasingly intimate associations between humans and wildlife disease reservoirs accelerate the potential for viruses to spread globally. Here, we assess the cost of monitoring and preventing disease spillover driven by the unprecedented loss and fragmentation of tropical forests and by the burgeoning wildlife trade. Currently, we invest relatively little toward preventing deforestation and regulating wildlife trade, despite well-researched plans that demonstrate a high return on their investment in limiting zoonoses and conferring many other benefits. As public funding in response to COVID-19 continues to rise, our analysis suggests that the associated costs of these preventive efforts would be substantially less than the economic and mortality costs of responding to these pathogens once they have emerged. …”

“ … Farmed Animal Spillover

Livestock are critical reservoirs and links in emergent diseases. H5N1 influenza came across the human-wildlife interface (wild bird → poultry → human transmission chain), as did H1N1 influenza (bird → pig → human). Many livestock-linked outbreaks have reached the cusp of pandemic emergence, such as Nipah virus (fruit bat → pig → human) and swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (bat → pig) (14). These links are well recognized and are the focus of pandemic prevention packages proposed by the U.S. Congress (H.R. 3771). There are well-researched veterinary health plans such as the World Bank’s One World One Health farm biosecurity intervention program, designed to reduce H5N1 influenza risk. With costs in the tens of billions of dollars, proposals dealing with livestock’s roles in pandemics are among the most advanced and ambitious of those being seriously considered. We have known about these risks longer (e.g., influenza) and can control farm biosecurity more easily than wildlife contact in trade or at forest edges. … “

“Situation in Bhutan, Cambodia and China
Participating countries presented their foodborne parasitic zoonosis status. Bhutan has a One Health Strategic Plan from 2017 to 2021. It has a passive surveillance system that only tracks reports of intestinal worms. The country had about 30,000 cases of intestinal worms between 2013 and 2017. …”

May 31, 2020

Again, Follow Dr. Fauci’s lead!

 “…we have long embraced a one-health paradigm at NIAID, especially in the realm of emerging and re-emerging diseases, most of which are zoonoses and must be studied in the context of the ecosystems humans share with microbes, non-human hosts, vectors, reservoirs and other actors.  Many of the research efforts about which I speak and write almost daily fall under the one health rubric, in that our studies are multi-disciplinary and have benefits not only for humans but for other species, agriculture, and other aspects of society and the environment.” [March 7, 2018 email to One Health Initiative (OHI) team, please see below*]  

The American people and the international community needs to listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci about the Coronavirus Pandemic and his endorsement of utilizing the One Health concept/approach … 

• Young people are driving the latest surge of cases. They are making a big mistake by thinking it doesn’t matter if they get infected, even though many of them won’t get very sick. But allowing themselves to get infected means they are propagating the pandemic.
• The anti-science trend mixes with an anti-authority trend, and scientists are often equated with authority. Young people may have been disappointed with government, which unfortunately adds to the anti-science sentiment.
• A vaccine very likely will be available by the end of 2020, and the process of developing a vaccine is moving much more quickly than previously because of new technologies.
• An NIH study is underway of 2000 families to look at the incidence of infection among children and the rate of transmission from children to adults, because it is not now clearly understood.
• “This will end, and we will get back to normal.”

“… With the Covid-19 pandemic likely originating in wet markets that largely escape veterinary surveillance, it is clear that animal health systems need strengthening as a pillar of One Health, an approach to improving health that links human, animal and environmental health inextricably. …”