VETERINARIAN RESPONSE TO THE COVID -19 CRISIS
Introduction
Humans, animals, and plants are precious gifts of God and nature. Humans are superior and intelligent amongst them. For humans, birth and death are two poles in life. While one begins with happiness and mirth, the other ends in gloom and sorrow. In between these two episodes humans may have to navigate life through many challenges. These may be diseases, calamities natural or manmade. Man including animal suffer from variety of diseases and disorders. These may be either of bacterial, viral, parasitic, rickettsial, fungal or non-specific. Medical and veterinary science has been devised by man through ingenuity to detect, diagnose, treat and eradicate diseases affecting humans and animals. The latter are important as they provide food and other necessities of life besides helping the economy to grow. However, because of perennial association between them many animal diseases have jumped over to humans which are named as ‘zoonotic diseases’.
Veterinarians, known as animal doctors in the countryside who treat animals are great asset to the society and belong to a versatile profession but very few people know about their contribution for which they remain as unsung. World Veterinary Day celebrated on the last Saturday of April every year worldwide since 2000 provides a platform to pay tribute to the veterinarians and their profession as a whole for their contribution to human welfare. Incidentally wholesale contribution of veterinarians to the society is too many to catalogue in this article confined to Covid-19 response. Appropriately the theme for the World Veterinary Day 2021 – 24th April, 2021 is “Veterinarian response to Covid – 19 crisis” which falls within the ambit of veterinary public health, a much neglected subject in India.
In the trying times of current Covid-19 pandemic solidarity of health and veterinary professionals hold key to our collective effort to control the epidemic and minimize the damage to country’s growth and economy. Coronavirus epidemic with its recent resurgence with greater menace has put the entire world in a fix. It has already spread to 219 countries threatening to paralyze human activity in many ways and immediate impact on life with millions affected and several hundred thousand deaths is awesome and unprecedented. It was said vaccine against Covid-19 would thwart the epidemic and bring a sigh of relief. But several reports suggest that full scale relief from it may be a distant cry in spite of mass vaccination regime and we have to live for long with this unusual virus having mysterious characters.
As reported the pathogen originated from Wuhan city in China around December, 2019, may be even earlier, quickly spilled over to other countries in a very short time with a vehemence unseen before. People outside China believe that China with its rapid economic growth promoted high demand for animal protein compounded by Chinese (for them nothing inedible) hunger to consume all kinds of animal food originating from bats, pangolins, snakes, and several other creatures, was responsible for the coronavirus pandemic – signaling an animal origin. Probably lack of enough precautionary veterinary public health and bio-safety measures and sanitary conditions in local food markets the virus could spread so fast. Some say that the virus was grown in a Wuhan laboratory and then somehow spilled to outside. This theory has not been corroborated by the World Health Organisation (WHO)). However, it is still debated if the virus had an animal origin from either the bats or pangolins. Though human to animal reverse transmission has been reported yet human to human spread is the chief cause of spread amongst human population and animals have not been incriminated. It has not only posed challenges to public health but also provoked socioeconomic consequences of unparalleled proportion forcing governments to devise and enforce standard operating procedures for the civil society like wearing of face mask, hand washing, and social distancing. When these measures fail lockdown, shutdown, night curfew and containment zones are inevitable. Unfortunately India is marching very fast in that direction as of today. But then what could be the veterinarian response in this situation – A BIG QUESTION.
Coronavirus:
Public might be anxious to know about Covid-19. But by now enough has been said about it in both print and electronic media besides knowledge circulating in social media. However, it will be worthwhile to recapitulate briefly about coronavirus family and Covid-19 in particular. Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses transmitting between animals and humans that cause illnesses from common cold to more severe respiratory diseases like Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS- CoV). Covid-19 otherwise known as CoV 2n belongs to this family as is the virus associated with Avian Flu or Bird Flu as is commonly known amongst the poultry farmers. Late Dr. Harekrushna Pradhan, founder Director of High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal renamed National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) and Bird Flu Man of India is credited with the isolation of Bird Flu virus in 2006 with zoonoses potential and development of a vaccine.
COVID-19 is the name given by WHO – new strain of Coronavirus formerly known as ‘nCoV 2019’ cause of a highly contagious respiratory disease and spreads principally by droplet infection when an infected man coughs, sneezes, or talks. It may also spread by touching of surfaces with the virus on them and then touching one’s mouth, nose or eyes but this is less common. Therefore, breaking the chain of transmission is paramount. Morphologically Corona Virions are spherical, displaying club-shaped projections enveloped by a bi-layer lipid envelope and is a RNA virus having the capability to spread very fast.
Veterinarian’s Response:
Probably due to lack of standard bio-safety measures and other sanitary protocols in Wuhan food market, transmission of infectious agent was possible between animals and from animals to humans. Phylogenetic analysis methods have shown that this pathogen was able to leave traces of its genome leading to new coronavirus generations. Evolutionary history of new coronavirus indicates that SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating unnoticed in bats for 30-70 years enabling it to get adapted in pangolins sold in Chinese markets for food. This has led to extensive contact with humans and spread as a zoonotic disease. In the realm of zoonotic diseases veterinarians hold a pivotal position in the prevention of new and dangerous zoonoses that could impact human health. Therefore, in the current scenario perfectly fits into the ONE HEALTH CONCEPT of WHO and World Organisation of Animal Health (OIE) which considers the interaction between humans and animals is closely related to human health as well as animal and environmental health. These interfaces provide opportunity to veterinarians for an effective role in prevention and detection of emerging zoonoses. It has been recognized by the WHO that out of ten emerging infections in humans about 7 (seven) have animal origin exemplified by the Spanish flu, H1N1, SARS, MERS and Ebola reminding HIV jumping from large primates (Chimpanzee) in Africa. Apart from these exotic diseases there are other diseases indigenous to our stock such as brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, avian influenza, swine fever, and rabies which are of public health risk waiting swift intervention like Covid-19.
Detection and testing of Covid-19:
Given this narrative neither the Government of India nor the State Governments have at any time taken the veterinary profession into confidence except in outbreaks of swine flu or bird flu to be exact though the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal has the technical man power and ‘know how and do how’ to intensify studies in which veterinarians have a definitive role and responsibility. In Indian context there are several reports about smuggling of pangolins from the jungles of Odisha involving international racketeers trading in wildlife ending in their arrest by the officials of Forest Department and more might have gone scot free. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has spread to rural areas there are chances of animal and human interface. Some of the pangolins, if not all, recovered from the possession of smugglers should have been screened for the presence of Coronavirus in them to be sure. It is necessary to reunite all the forces and take all the actors on board to find out and confirm the origin of the pathogen and if there was reverse zoonoses. This could have opened a pathway for epidemiological studies. Preliminary study could have been conducted at the Wild Life Diseases Laboratory in the Department of Medicine, Odisha College of Veterinary Science & Animal Husbandry, Bhubaneswar and to conclusively establish veterinarian’s role in public health.
During the first episode of Coronavirus pandemic testing of large number of human samples necessitated a quick response from Public Health Authorities to assess the percentage of population exposed to infection so that effective measures could be devised to check community spread using RT-PCR test. Services of veterinarians was utilized to conduct RT-PCR test at facilities available in veterinary research institutes say at International Centre for Foot & Mouth Disease, Arugul, near Bhubaneswar (Odisha). But as Covid warriors they were not recognized and are forgotten lot and not rewarded. The veterinary doctors treat patients and interact with owners (who may be asymptomatic) also do not fall into the category of Covid warriors. The discrimination is painful and a pity.
With Covid-19 cases rising steeply in the South East Asian Region including India for past one month, the World Health Organistion in its latest advisory has urged to apply all tools to prevent further infection and save lives. When it comes to saving lives scientific community should join hands to fight the emergence of variants. Facilities at Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal, Indian Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Central Equine Research Institute, Hissar and International Centre for Foot & Mouth Disease, Arugul, Jatni (Bhubaneswar) and College of Veterinary Sciences could have been utilized for genomic sequencing on a sub set of cases in addition to medical and life sciences institutes through a collaborative enabling action. The scientific community should not stand divided to face this enormous challenge. Veterinarians have an obligation to the society for human welfare and their capacity and response cannot be underestimated during a crisis we are facing now.
In this backdrop emerging and reemerging pathogens from wildlife sources concurrent with increasing intrusion of wildlife into human habitation needs better coordination between Forest Department and Veterinary Scientist engaged in treatment of wildlife diseases. Despite the integration of One Health concept by the OIE and WHO since 2016 the idea seems to have taken no root so far. Briefly stated “One Health Concept” introduced in early 2000s means that human health and animal health are interdependent and bound to the health of ecosystem in which every life exist. Can we say it is a proposition of global health for all the creatures including plant kingdom. Understanding the risks and health issues of human and domestic animals (including wildlife) and ecosystem health is a gigantic task. The veterinarian response and role shall become more affirmative if the ONE HEALTH concept –a collaborative, multisectoral and transdisciplinary endeavour – is implemented by Public Health Department and Veterinary Department jointly. If acted upon COVID-19 pandemic can easily fall in place for veterinarian’s response and action.
Vaccine Production:
Veterinarians are credited with `production of vaccines to prevent and eradicate animal diseases across the world. Dr. J. T. Edward was first to evolve Rinderpest vaccine at IVRI, Mukteswar from goat tissue. Dr.Camille Guerin, a lady veterinarian, in association with Dr.Albert Calmette became immortal with the discovery of BCG vaccine against tuberculosis. It is only mentioned to emphasise role of veterinarians in the field of preventive medicine and immunization. According to American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) veterinarians in the United States of America are actively associated with the production of COVID-19 vaccine which taken the centre stage of government policy formulation in all countries to contain the pandemic. As per report the “AVMA has advocated actively and successfully at the federal level for veterinary personnel to be considered a priority group for vaccination. It has been working diligently with the state and local veterinary groups to monitor vaccine rollout plans and continue veterinary teams’ access.” Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association published on 31st March, 2021 reports that government and private veterinarians have already been assisting in several states across the US. It is further stated that “several states have also begun to include private veterinarians in their vaccination delivery plans from helping with screening to administering vaccines.” Same philosophy to have a collaborative effort during perhaps most critical time is missing in India. Many production facilities are engaged in Covid-19 vaccine production worldwide. Dr. Albert Bouria, a veterinarian, with M/s Pfizer Ltd is leading team for development of COVID-19 vaccine..
Fall out of Covid-19 pandemic:
The Covid-19 pandemic is the singular most catastrophic event in recent human memory. Countries worldwide face tremendous challenge to control the pandemic and simultaneously to rejuvenate the economy hit by the pandemic. Besides causing millions of death and infecting healthy people the pandemic is responsible for paralysing the economy of developed and developing countries. It has brought incalculable misery to the working class leaving them to virtual starvation. They lost jobs and returned home for safety but did not find respite. The second surge has left people awestruck not knowing how many more surges they have to face given the unpredictable behavior of the virus or live with Covid-19 for ever.
Conclusion:
Despite the contribution of veterinarians to society they remain as unsung heroes unseen and unheard they suffer and cry as if it is nothing for a passerby though they are the best doctors in the world according to Will Roger as he can’t as his patients what is the matter he ought to know. Therefore, having stated this it is imperative that beyond collaborative research there should be a common response to utilize the expertise and manpower to enhance the supporting diagnostic and testing capacity of the lead agencies being available at the door step of veterinary services including veterinary epidemiologists, a next door sister profession, for public good. Veterinarians’ professionalism could help to implement multiple activities like bio-security and safety measures, and livelihoods intrinsically linked to sound animal production with low input cost. The veterinarians won’t disappoint the society or any other stakeholder. Finally when there is will there is way, as the saying goes, everything is possible. Just give a chance to respond.
Dr. Simant Kumar Nanda, M. V. Sc., Sub-Divisional Veterinary Officer, Koraput, Odisha
