VETERINARIAN RESPONSIBILITIES WITHIN “ONE WORLD, ONE HEALTH” FRAMEWORK

VETERINARIAN RESPONSIBILITIES WITHIN “ONE WORLD- ONE HEALTH” FRAMEWORK

Annu Yadav, Neelesh Sindhu, Tarun Kumar, Ankit Kumar, Ronak Kadyan and Pooja

Department of Veterinary Medicine, Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Hisar, Haryana, 125004

ABSTRACT

Veterinarians play an indispensable role in the animal based food chain. To ensure public’s food supply and health safety, they have professional responsibility for farm animal welfare. Food related scandals and zoonotic disease outbreaks in recent years have highlighted how inter-wined animal and human health are. Therefore the concept of one health is broadly promoted within veterinary medicine. This profession embraces the notion that the health of humans, animals and the environment is inextricably linked and supports the related call for trans-disciplinary collaboration. Especially in zoonotic disease control, the benefits of the cooperation between veterinarians and human doctors seem evident. How, for instance, should veterinarians handle circumstances where actions to safeguard human health have a negative impact on animal health? A conflict of obligations arises as a result of this. To deal with such moral problems and to strengthen the veterinarian’s position, the starting point is a holistic perspective on One Health. Best way to safeguard human health is to promote animal health and environment. This also holds for the veterinarian responsibility: to serve public health, central responsibility of veterinarians should be to be experts in animal health and welfare. This article provides a glimpse of one health approach and veterinarian role in achieving “One World One health concept” to prevent Zoonoses.

Keywords: One health, Veterinarians, Welfare, Zoonoses

ONE HEALTH CONCEPT:

One Health an interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral and collaborative approach that can function at global, regional, national and local levels, with the objective of ensuring optimal health through the recognition of connections among environment, humans, animals and plants (US CDC, 2022). This integrated and unifying approach can mitigate and prevent health threats at the interface of the environment, humans, animals and plants, with the objective of achieving and sustainably balancing or optimizing public and animal health, food and nutritional security, sustainable ecosystems and fair trade (FAO, 2022). The One Health approach mobilizes several disciplines and sectors as well as communities at different levels in working together to combat health and ecosystem threats. It is aimed at addressing the collective need for clean water, energy and air, safe and nutritious food, taking action on climate change and contributing to sustainable development (WHO, 2020). One Health is a global paradigm for challenge driven teamwork that forges co-equal and all-inclusive collaboration across human, animal, plant and environmental health areas. In terms of legislation and policy, the One Health approach can be enforced to implement programs, policies and legislation through communication across several sectors working together to achieve better health (UN, 2020).

HISTORICAL ADVANCEMENT OF THE ONE HEALTH STRATEGY:

The One Health approach concept was launched in 19th century by Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) after he incorporated veterinary medicine into human health and asserted the absence of a dividing line between them (Monath et al., 2010). Subsequently, the One Health concept grew worldwide, and at the start of the first of 21st century showed a paradigm shift; since then, interdisciplinary collaboration has expanded. The Wildlife Conservation Society formulated the One World-One Health concept, in 2004, by establishing a cross-sectional approach to prevent epizootic or epidemic diseases and maintain ecosystem integrity (Coleman, 2008). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Organization of Animal Health (OIE), United Nations Children’s Fund, World Bank and United Nations System Influenza Coordinator documented a strategic framework for decreasing risks of infectious diseases at the human–animal–environment interface, entitled “Contributing to One World, One Health,” in 2008 (Buttigieg, 2015). In the same year, this strategic framework was supported by World Medical Association (WMA) through a resolution on the collaboration between human and veterinary medicine, including joint educational effort (Jones et al., 2008).

IMPORTANCE OF ONE HEALTH APPROACH:

The One Health approach is used to conduct joint disease surveillance; control and prevent zoonotic diseases outbreaks; improve food safety and security; and decrease antimicrobial resistant infections to improve human and animal health (Sinclair, 2019). By promoting strong collaboration among relevant sectors, the One Health approach strengthens the disease surveillance system, the data sharing mechanism with all stakeholders, diagnostic laboratory systems, and the network for early response and detection of zoonoses (Africa CDC, 2021). This approach clearly enhances the zoonotic disease prevention and control workforce and ensures effective and coordinated public health emergency preparedness, in which all strategies contribute to the effective reduction of zoonotic diseases. Generally, the One Health approach strongly supports international health security through its effective multi-sectoral collaboration, coordination and information communication at the interface between relevant sectors by addressing common health threats, such as zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and security issues (Stewart et al., 2005).

 VETERINARIAN ROLE IN ONE HEALTH CONCEPT FOR ZOONOSES PREVENTION:

One health approach plays a significant role in the prevention and control of zoonoses. It has been noted by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2005) and Graham et al. (2008) that approximately 75% of new emerging human infectious diseases are defined as zoonotic, meaning that they may be naturally transmitted from vertebrate animals to humans. New and reemerging zoonoses have evolved throughout the last three decades partly as a consequence of the increasing interdependence of humans on animals and their products and our close association with companion animals. Zoonoses should therefore be considered the single most critical risk factor to human health and well-being, with regard to infectious diseases. Of the 1,461 infectious diseases recognized to occur in humans by the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Sciences, 2000) approximately 60% are caused by multihost pathogens, characterized by their movement across various species. This gives significant credence to the importance of examining health effects across species, in order to fully understand the public health and economic impact of such diseases and to help implement treatment and preventive programs. The one health concept is a broad term that covers a variety of subcategories identified as bioterrorism, animals as predictors for disease, and the psychological bonds that can exist between an animal and a human.

Also societal expectations with regard to the professional responsibilities of veterinarians are changing. The work of veterinarians is no longer restricted to curative medicine in the interest of individual animals and their owners. A modern veterinarian must also have the competence to take collective and global perspectives into account and has responsibilities to care for animal welfare and public health as well (Meijboom 2018). According to Rollin, the most fundamental question of veterinary ethics is whether a veterinarian morally owes primary allegiance towards the owner or the animal (Rollin 2006). Nowadays, veterinarians in animal food production also have to consider the interests of the food companies, retail, consumers and society. Mostly, neither veterinary legislation nor professional codes offer veterinarians much support in case of conflicting values or interests. For instance, the Dutch Animal Law states that veterinarians have a duty of care towards animals (Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, 2019). However, how they should act when this duty of care conflict with other responsibilities that society imposes on veterinarian is not clear from the legal text. In reality, many veterinarians are struggling with this plethora of responsibilities. In daily practice veterinarians often have to deal with situations where human and animal interests are in conflict and no easy solutions are available. Greatest way to protect human health is to advance the wellbeing of animals and the environment, thus we will make the case for a “encapsulated health” position. This is also true of the veterinary profession’s duty: veterinarians’ primary duty should be to be authorities in animal welfare and health in order to serve the public health (Van Herten and Meijboom, 2019).

CONCLUSION:

Re-emerging and emerging zoonoses are an increasing international threat. In the past 20 years, they have caused very high economic and public health damage in many local and global multi-sectoral economies. Hence, a strong multi-sectoral collaborative and institutional system (the One Health approach) is required to effectively reduce the burden of, prevent and control those zoonoses. In our opinion, to optimally promote, One Health the primary interest of veterinarians should be to promote animal health. One Health offers a way out of the dichotomy between public and animal health that is at the basis of many moral dilemmas in zoonotic disease control. This transition starts with veterinarians who give animal health and welfare priority over economic interests of farmers and the food production chain when human health is at stake. Therefore, we propose that professional organizations of veterinarian should play an important role here. By joining forces, veterinarians can publicly address health issues, call for the necessary structural changes and support individual veterinarians and farmers in making a step from a curative control-based approach to a strategy that focuses on prevention. In this way, our idea of ‘encapsulated health’ functions on an individual as well as on an organizational level. In the long run, we expect that such a preventive approach can mitigate possible conflicts between animal health and public health that veterinarians are confronted with. Hence it is inferred that all One Health stakeholders worldwide aggressively work toward the promotion, implementation and institutionalization of the One Health approach.

ROLE OF VETERINARIANS TO ACHIEVE ONE WORLD ONE HEALTH

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