World Zoonoses Day is observed every year on July 6 to commemorate the work of French biologist Louis Pasteur on the same day in the year 1885. Pasteur successfully administered the first vaccine against rabies, which is a zoonotic disease.
What Are Zoonoses?
Zoonosis or a zoonotic disease is an infection that is naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans. Animals can often carry harmful germs which may spread to people and cause illnesses, known as zoonoses. Pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi may cause zoonotic diseases. The pathogens may cause different types of illnesses in people and animals, ranging from mild to serious illness, and sometimes, death.
There are over 200 known types of zoonoses, which comprise a large percentage of new and existing diseases in humans. Rabies is a zoonotic disease which is 100 per cent preventable through vaccination and other methods. Zoonotic pathogens may spread to humans through direct contact or through food, water or the environment, and represent a major public health problem around the world.
Importance Of World Zoonoses Day
A report titled "Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission" was published on World Zoonoses Day 2020. As the Covid-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc in the world, the report warned that further outbreaks will emerge unless governments take active measures to prevent other zoonotic diseases from crossing into the human population.
The report, which was a joint effort by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), presented ten recommendations to prevent future pandemics. It identified seven trends driving the increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases. According to the report, Africa, which has experienced and responded to a number of zoonotic epidemics including Ebola outbreaks, could be a source of important solutions to quell future outbreaks.
Which Factors Drive The Emergence Of Zoonotic Diseases?
The report identified seven human-mediated factors as most likely driving the emergence of zoonotic diseases, the Convention on Biological Diversity said on its website. These are: increasing human demand for animal protein, unsustainable agricultural intensification, increased use and exploitation of wildlife, unsustainable utilisation of natural resources accelerated by urbanisation, land use change and extractive industries, increased travel and transportation, changes in food supply, and climate change.
The report noted that around 80 per cent of pathogens infecting animals are "multi-host". This means that the pathogens move among different animal hosts, including humans.
Healthy and stable ecosystems are at risk due to continued biodiversity loss and runaway climate change. Crises like the Covid-19 pandemic reduce the ability of biodiversity and ecosystems to provide essential life-sustaining services including disease regulation and pest management.
Ten Recommendations To Mitigate Zoonoses
The ten recommendations proposed in the report can help governments, businesses and other actors not only to respond to and mitigate future disease outbreaks, but also to reduce the risk of their emergence. The key recommendations are: Awareness, Governance, Science, Funding, Monitoring and Regulation, Incentives, Biosecurity and Control, Agriculture and Wildlife Habitats, Capacity Building, and Operationalising the One Health approach.
Awareness: The aim of World Zoonoses Day is to raise awareness and increase understanding of zoonotic and emerging disease risks and prevention, at all levels of society to build widespread support for risk-reduction strategies.
Governance: In order to highlight the continued importance of prevention of zoonotic diseases on World Zoonoses Day 2021, the report highlighted ten key policy recommendations including governance. The report suggested that investments should be increased in interdisciplinary approaches including the One Health approach.
One Health is an approach in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes, and includes the control of zoonoses such as avian flu, rabies, and Rift Valley fever. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the approach is key to the management of shared threats for future outbreaks and pandemics at the human-animal-environment interface.
According to the report, the integration of environmental considerations in the WHO/Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)/World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Tripartite Collaboration should be strengthened.
Science: This means that one must expand scientific inquiry into the complex social, economic and ecological dimensions of emerging diseases, including zoonoses, to assess risks and develop interventions at the interface of the environment, animal health and human health.
Finance: It is important to improve cost-benefit analyses of the prevention of emerging diseases.
Monitoring and Regulation: It is essential to develop effective means of monitoring and regulating practices associated with zoonotic diseases, including food systems from farm to fork, and improving sanitary measures. The nutritional, cultural and socio-economic benefits of these food systems must be taken into account.
Incentives: One must include health considerations in incentives for sustainable food systems, including wildlife source foods. Unsustainable agricultural practice, and wildlife consumption and trade, including illegal activities, should be controlled. It is important to develop alternatives for food security and livelihoods that do not rely on the destruction and unsustainable exploitation of habits and biodiversity.
Biosecurity and Control: It is important to identify the key drivers of emerging diseases in animal husbandry, both in industrialised agriculture and smallholder production. One must include biosecurity measures in animal husbandry or livestock production. Moreover, biosecurity and zoonotic disease control measures should be introduced for industrial and disadvantaged smallholder farmers and herders.
Agriculture and Wildlife Habitats: It is essential to support the integrated management of landscapes and seascapes that enhance sustainable co-existence of agriculture and wildlife. One can invest in agroecological methods of food production that mitigate waste and pollution while reducing the risk of zoonotic disease transmission.
Also, governments and businesses can further reduce the destruction and fragmentation of wildlife habitat by strengthening the implementation of existing commitments on habitat conservation and restoration, and reduction of habitat loss.
Capacity Building: It is important to strengthen existing capacities among health stakeholders in all countries to improve outcomes and to help them understand the human, animal and environmental health dimensions of zoonotic and other diseases.
Operationalising the One Health approach: Governments, businesses and other stakeholders should adequately mainstream and implement the 'One Health' approach in land-use and sustainable development planning, and implementation and monitoring, among other fields.