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. …”

Scientists at Kansas State University are working with a biopharmaceutical company to advance a COVID-19 vaccine based on weakened bovine parainfluenza 3 virus invented by Waithaka Mwangi, a professor of diagnostic pathobiology in the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine…

Jul 13, 2020

MANHATTAN — Kansas State University has signed a new preclinical research and option agreement with Tonix Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, to develop a vaccine candidate for the prevention of COVID-19.

The inventor of the technology, Waithaka Mwangi, professor of diagnostic pathobiology in the K-State College of Veterinary Medicine, will direct the research, which is based on a new vaccine platform that his research team developed for bovine parainfluenza 3 virus, known as BPI3V, which is closely related to human parainfluenza 3 virus.

“A weakened BPI3V has previously been shown to be an effective vaccine vehicle in humans. More importantly, following extensive testing, BPI3V was shown to be safe and stable in infants and children,” Mwangi said. “The vector is well suited for mucosal immunization using a nasal atomizer, but it can also be injected. Therefore, BPI3V is suitable for development of COVID-19 vaccine candidates.” …

“… Meanwhile,  country-director of WWF-Cambodia Seng Teak says the organisation is advocating the “One Health” approach, an initiative that links the health of the people and conservation of animals and promotes the need to heal human-nature relationship to avert future pandemics. …”

“World Bank: Safeguarding Animal, Human and Ecosystem Health: One Health at the World Bank (7/9).”

“If human history were a clock, it’s One Health O’clock.”

“ … Driving the news: The United Nations Environment Program issued a report this week outlining steps to prevent spillovers and encouraging governments to adopt a “One Health” approach to humans, animals and the environment.

• Countries need to be all working on the same page and make sure “that the human disease surveillance systems are sophisticated and sensitive enough that they can catch any cases that do spillover to humans,” says Julie Fischer, senior technical adviser to the Global Health Security Agenda Consortium. …”

One Health: Virology in action https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2020/07/06/virology-in-action/

Dr. Sharon Brookes, Lead Scientist for Animal and Zoonotic Viral Diseases

FREE enrollment ONE HEALTH Princeton University, 1^st of its kind online course starts today July2 2020: “Bats, Ducks, and Pandemics: An Introduction to One Health Policy” https://www.coursera.org/learn/onehealth/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=other&utm_campaign=opencourse.zegVDcOAEemOARJ_oF_sig.launch

By Laura H. Kahn, MD, MPH, MPP

“…A new Department of Health Security based on the One Health approach would ensure that health and well-being would become one of the federal government’s top priorities. By highlighting the limitations of the siloed federal approach to human disease, the environment, and agriculture, COVID-19 has created an opening for the next administration to do something different. …”

“The mutual dependence of human and animal health is central to the One Health initiative as an integrated strategy for infectious disease control and management. A crucial element of the One Health includes preparation and response to influenza A virus (IAV) threats at the human-animal interface. …”

”

The global human suffering, economic damage, and social disruption we are currently experiencing from the COVID-19 pandemic stem from inadequate preparedness and ineffective response to emerging pathogens. At its core, the COVID-19 pandemic is a consequence of our fundamental ignorance of our planet’s natural ecosystems and the effects of our encroachment on them. Our reactive approaches to the emergence of zoonotic pathogens, which are responsible for approximately 75% of all new emerging infectious disease outbreaks, are too often based on limited knowledge of the origin, pathogenicity, and basic biology of the wild host and pathogen coupled with poor communication among relevant stakeholders. Others have pointed to this ignorance of viral diversity and offered solutions (Andersen et al. 2020), but a broad, fully integrative discussion of how to leverage existing infrastructure and to build new resources has been missing. In the present article, we call for the development of alternative tactics that are aimed at proactively meeting the daunting challenges to humanity posed by emerging zoonotic pathogens.

The potential role of natural history specimens in pathogen discovery and mitigation is recognized in the museum world (DiEuliis et al. 2016, Dunnum et al. 2017) and by at least some disease ecologists (e.g., Mills and Childs 1998). However, relatively few in the One Health community (e.g., Kelly et al. 2020) embrace the value of leveraging existing biodiversity infrastructure (i.e., natural history collections, biorepositories, and their associated expertise and informatics resources) to more fully understand zoonotic pathogen emergence and reemergence. This concept is not new; in the early 1900 s, the American Museum of Natural History created the Department of Public Health (Brown 2014). Although a lack of funding put an early end to the initiative, the Department of Public Health made extensive progress, from clever exhibitions for the public to assembling a living collection of bacterial cultures (Brown 2014). Renewed efforts to align pathobiology with biodiversity discovery initiatives are critical. Moreover, linking both biodiversity infrastructure and building capacity closer to zoonotic pathogen surveys in biodiverse countries would substantially improve proactive responses to pandemics before they once again wreak havoc across the globe.”

JUNE 26 2020…This letter was sent to the Senate HELP Committee on behalf of the informal coalition of One Health partner organizations.

“…Now, more than ever, after seeing the devastation of the current zoonotic disease pandemic, the federal government must adopt a coordinated, One Health framework to prepare for and respond to the next infectious disease outbreak. We urge the HELP Committee to embrace and approve the One Health Act of 2019 so it can proceed to the Senate Floor for a full vote.”