In conjunction with one health day on 3rd November, we Doc2Us prepare an article to raise awareness on One Health concept.
What is one health?
One health, is also known as “Satu Health” in Malay, is a concept where the us human, animals and environment are connected. Health of us humans is closely related to the health of animals and the environment. This highlights that humans are not the ruler of Mother nature but only one of her inhabitants. Under this concept, pollution in the environment, illness in animals, will ultimately lead to ill health of humans.
Why is one health becoming increasingly important?
One health concept is not new. But it has gained more popularity recently, in the public health and animal health communities. This is because in recent years, there are big changes in the interactions between people, animals, plants, and our environment.
For example, the rapid expansion of human population. Due to the dense population, we are using up more land, and more people are living in close contact with wild and domestic animals. Close contact with animals and the environment causes higher chance of disease transmission between animals and people.
Furthermore, deforestation and large scale farming practices cause huge changes in the environment. This results in climate change, global warming, land and air pollution. Disruptions in environmental conditions and habitats can provide new opportunities for diseases to pass to animals.
Lastly, the movement of people, animals, and animal products has increased from international travel and trade. As a result, diseases can spread quickly across borders and around the globe.
Why do we have to know about it?
The connection between us humans, animals and the environment is the basis of many diseases, most of which transmitted from animals or due to change in environment, for example Dengue fever, Rabies, Ebola, MERS and the current Covid-19 pandemic. In the case of Dengue, a change in environment (rainy season), increase in mosquito breeding sites such as pots with stagnant water, unclean water containers cause the disease to spread by Aedes mosquitoes. For Covid-19, studies show that the virus might have originated from bats, then transmitted to humans.
Each year around the world, it is estimated that zoonoses (diseases shared between people and animals) cause 2.5 billion cases of sickness and 2.7 million deaths (CDC). These diseases can acutally be prevented, through maintaining good hygiene in animal farms and keeping the environment less polluted.
How does the concept of One health impact our life?
One Health issues include zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, vector-borne diseases, environmental contamination. The overuse of antimicrobials in agriculture and in hospitals, causes the bacteria to change and become immune to the drugs, making diseases more difficult to treat. Environmental contamination, for example the river pollution in Pasir Gudang, and the haze from forest fire in Indonesia, causes serious health problems in humans. These are some of the issues we have to be aware of.
What can we do about it?
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Read more. Be aware of the relationship between people, animals and environment, and how those can affect our health.
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Love the environment! We can reduce the usage of plastics, practice recycling, carpooling, and planting trees.
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Take care of your pets. If you notice any symptoms in your pets, bring them to the nearest vet as soon as possible. Disease from pets may be transmissible to humans.
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Communicate and work together with each other. Professionals in human health (doctors, nurses, public health experts), animal health (veterinarians), environment (agricultural workers, wildlife experts), need to communicate and coordinate activities. Even if you are not an expert, showing interest in this area helps too.
We hope that through this sharing about one health concept, we will raise awareness among Malaysian public on this issue. Everything we do on the environment or the animals will have an impact on our health after all, as all beings are connected in this Mother nature.
Cover image credit: https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/one-health-day.html
Image credit:
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https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/images/multimedia/one-health-def.jpg
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https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/who-we-are/one-health-office-fact-sheet.html
Sources:
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CDC. One health basics. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/index.html
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One health commission. https://www.onehealthcommission.org/
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CDC's One health office. What we do. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/what-we-do/index.html
