A One-Health approach is needed to protect both people and the planet—ILRI and UNEP leaders

Graphic adapted by Annabel Slater, of ILRI communications, from World Bank, 2012.

An opinion piece by Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), warns that zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19 may become more prevalent in the future—and lays out what we need to do to identify and prevent future outbreaks.

As the world confronts the pandemic, countries in Africa that have managed deadly zoonotic disease outbreaks have much to offer.

. . . Six months into it, the world is still reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Like the recent Ebola outbreaks, this novel coronavirus has brought into sharp focus the dangers posed by a class of diseases called zoonoses—those which jump between animal and human populations.

Covid-19 is the latest—and one of the most devastating—zoonotic diseases to affect us in generations, but it is far from the first. Ebola, SARS, MERS, HIV, Lyme disease, Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever, to name a few, are all examples of zoonotic diseases. Today, 60% of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, as are 75% of all emerging infectious diseases. Most of these are transmitted by wild animals, but others enter human populations through livestock. MERS, for example, was transmitted to humans through camels.

While today’s immediate priority is saving lives and incomes, we must also look at the conditions that have allowed zoonotic diseases such as Covid-19 to become more prevalent—and importantly, identify how to prevent future outbreaks.

In the past one hundred years, the human population has increased almost four-fold and the world has witnessed an unprecedented decline in the natural environment. From unsustainable agricultural intensification and our increased use and exploitation of wildlife to our infrastructure choices and unsustainable energy production and consumption, we have failed to nurture the planet on which our very lives depend. And that has triggered a rise in the emergence and spread of new zoonoses.

In a scientific assessment released this week, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) argue that to prevent the next pandemic, countries must urgently integrate human, animal and environment health expertise and policy—a one-health approach to protect us and protect the planet.

One health is not a new concept, but its uptake and institutional support is uneven. Specifically, our assessment finds that the weakest link in the chain today is environmental health, despite a growing understanding of the links between our habitat and human health. Conservation experts monitoring great apes, for instance, can be a valuable part of zoonotic disease surveillance in communities living in proximity to them.

Experts monitoring habitats—and their destruction—also have a role to play, because we know that forest fragmentation has an influence on the emergence and spread of zoonoses. These experts should be working with livestock keepers, veterinarians and other environmental specialists to limit the spread of zoonotic diseases by jointly managing spaces where livestock and wildlife co-exist.

For example, in 2018, livestock experts working closely with human healthcare professionals in Kenya detected the emergence of Rift Valley fever and deployed livestock vaccinations and other interventions to contain its spread.

As we look at recovery from the current pandemic and the investments required to avoid another global catastrophe, one-health strategies should be front and centre.

Countries in Africa and others around the world that have managed deadly zoonotic disease outbreaks have much to offer. They have developed public health measures—from education campaigns to monitoring and contact tracing by local health centres—to protect members of the public when these outbreaks do happen. It’s no accident that the nearly two-year-long Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo did not lead to large-scale outbreaks in neighbouring countries.

Through experience, many African countries have improved their response to zoonotic outbreaks, something that has so far borne fruit as they address Covid-19, with countries locking down and instituting physical distancing early on in the pandemic. Others quickly made health-related economic adjustments such as moving to mobile money to curb the risk of disease transmission through cash transactions.

With the world more interconnected than ever before, we have the opportunity to mix the wisdom of experience with the promise of innovation for solutions that can address the complex human, animal and planetary problems that brought us Covid-19.

Today, the chain reaction from a sick planet to sick animals and humans is clearer than ever.

Preventing the next pandemic will require protecting the health of the planet and all who inhabit it.

Inger Andersen is the executive director of the UNEP and Jimmy Smith is the director general of the ILRI

Read the whole of this opinion piece by ILRI’s Jimmy Smith and UNEP’s Inger Andersen on the Mail & Guardian site, where it was originally published: Human health, animal health and environmental health are inextricably linked, 12 Jul 2020.

Read the press release about the ILRI-UNEP report

Unite human, animal and environmental health to prevent the next pandemic, says ILRI/UN report, ILRI.ORG, 6 Jul 2020.

View media coverage of the ILRI-UNEP report

Joint UN-CGIAR assessment explains how animal-to-human pandemics like COVID-19 occur and how to prevent them in future, ILRI.ORG, 11 Jul 2010.

Read the full ILRI-UNEP report

United Nations Environment Programme and International Livestock Research Institute. 2020. Preventing the next pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP.

Visit ILRI’s web page about COVID-19 and Preventing the next pandemic

Visit ILRI’s web page on ILRI expertise on zoonotic diseases

Visit ILRI’s web page on its new One Health Research, Education and Outreach Centre for Africa

Visit ILRI’s page on the CGIAR Antimicrobial Resistance Hub

Visit CGIAR’s web page on A Food System Response to COVID-19

View a video short by ILRI’s Annabel Slater about the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19