Global change, including climate change, including urbanization,
massive population growth, biodiversity and habitat loss,
habitat fragmentation, is reshaping the ecological interactions
between human populations and animal populations and their ecosystems.
Ecological interaction and
socio-ecological interactions are becoming more complex.
And also, there are new interactions that are racing and
becoming important in the context of global health.
Back in 2008, a paper was published by Jones and
collaborator in nature showing that the number of emerging infectious diseases
events have been growing during the last decades, concomitant with global change.
Emerging infectious diseases advance include SARS, Ebola,
Avian Influenza, among others.
And when we look at them more closely we see that these events
have an important origin in wildlife.
Most precisely, 60% of the emerging infectious diseases are zoonosis,
which means that they are transmitted from vertebrate animals to humans.
And when we look at the zoonosis closely we see that more than
70% of them have their origin in wild animal populations.
So, in this context, it is absolutely necessary to bridge the links,
and to establish collaborations among different disciplines.
Among experts in the human medicine and
on human health, but also animal and ecosystem health.
So we have to bridge links and collaborations between medical doctors and
health professionals, veterinarians and
other health professionals in the animal sector, but also animal ecologists,
zoologists, behavioral ecologists conservation biologists, etc.
And it is exactly here where the so-called One Health
approach comes in, but what is the One Health approach?
The One Health approach is based on the fact that human, animal and ecosystem
interactions are extremely important for health and for global health.
Human, animals, and ecosystem health are interrelated,
and by creating this interdisciplinary and intersectorial collaboration,
we can actually tackle health problems at this interface more effectively.
And gain an added value from these collaborations that can be demonstrated
in terms of economical benefits, in terms of a gain of time, or
also organizational benefits.