A ‘One Health’ approach that targets people, animals (GS-2,3 The Hindu editorial)

04 May A ‘One Health’ approach that targets people, animals (GS-2,3 The Hindu editorial)

Context:- Recent corona outbreak shows that there is no boundary between human vaccine and animal vaccine, i.e. zoonotic disease must be cured.

• There are many examples, such as Nipah virus, Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Avian Influenza, which shows that diseases are transmitted from animal to human.

How India is tackling this issue:-

• India’s ‘One Health’ vision 

  • agreement between the tripartite-plus alliance

    • FAO+ the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the World Health Organization (WHO) + the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

•  India established a National Standing Committee on Zoonoses 

•  setting up a ‘Centre for One Health’ at Nagpur. Further, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) 

•  National Animal Disease Control Programme

• Foot and Mouth disease and Brucellosis control.\

•  focus on capacity building for veterinarians

• upgrading the animal health diagnostic system 

• WHO estimates that rabies costs the global economy approximately $6 billion annually. 

  • 90% of it is in india

Way Forward:-

•  there must be timely detection.

• address challenges

  • pertaining to veterinary manpower shortages

  • the lack of information sharing between human and animal health institutions

  •  inadequate coordination on food safety at slaughter, distribution, and retail facilities

• consolidating existing animal health and disease surveillance systems 

• National Animal Disease Reporting System

• Capacity Building

• awareness generation

•  increased investments toward meeting ‘One Health

Swarn Singh

Plutus IAS Current Affair Team Member