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Africa/Global: Preventing the Next Pandemic
AfricaFocus Bulletin
August 3, 2020 (2020-08-03 )
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
“COVID-19 is just one example of the rising trend of diseases –
from Ebola to MERS to West Nile and Rift Valley fevers – caused by
viruses that have jumped from animal hosts into the human
population. … The rising trend in zoonotic diseases is driven by
the degradation of our natural environment – through land
degradation, wildlife exploitation, resource extraction, climate
change, and other stresses.” - Press release from UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) and International Livestock Research Institute
(ILRI), Nairobi, July 6, 2020
While the world is still struggling to cope with the Covid-19
pandemic, which originated from bats in China, zoonotic diseases
are a far more general issue, linked not only to wildlife but to
domestic animals, particularly those in factory farming
environments. Unless the impact of human economies on the natural
environment can be managed differently, zoonotic diseases are
certain to continue to be more prevalent, and some among them will
become pandemic.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the press release and excerpts
from “Preventing the next pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to
break the chain of transmission. “ This new report from two
Nairobi-based global organizations makes the case that preventing
such a development by catching diseases at an early stage depends
on global coordination of research and policy on the intersection
of animal health, human health, and the health of the environment.
UN agencies are referring to this approach as “One Health,” and
stepping up cooperation of specialized agencies to promote it.
Covid-19 has led to new attention to this need, as illustrated by recent articles in The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, Monthly Review, and SciDev Net.
Unfortunately there have also been stereotypes and rumors attached to the Chinese origin of Covid-19, such as the allegation that the virus may have originated from one of the foremost institutions involved in research on bat viruses and the erroneous stereotype that eating bats is a Chinese tradition, neither of which have any credibility among knowledgeable scientists. For a refutation of the bat-eating myth and an explanation of its origin, see this post by anthropologist Osten Cramer who has specialized in the wildlife trade in China and other Asian countries. And for more about Shi Zhengli, the leading virologist who began her work on bat viruses with SARS in 2004, see recent articles in Science magazine and Scientific American.
Shi and her work illustrate the kind of international scientific collaboration which Lancet editor Richard Horton has recently lauded as “the truly global collective effort” by scientists to respond to Covid-19, contrasting it to the failure of politicians, including the “crime against humanity” in President Trump's cutoff of funding to the World Health Organization.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on health, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on agriculture, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-ag.php
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Unite human, animal and environmental health to prevent the next pandemic – UN Report
Press Release, 6 July, 2020, Nairobi
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) * International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/unite-human-animal-and-environmental-health-prevent-next-pandemic-un
* COVID-19 is just one example of the rising trend of diseases –
from Ebola to MERS to West Nile and Rift Valley fevers – caused by
viruses that have jumped from animal hosts into the human
population.
* A new assessment offers ten recommendations, and identifies One
Health as the optimal way to prevent and respond to future
pandemics.
* The rising trend in zoonotic diseases is driven by the
degradation of our natural environment – through land degradation,
wildlife exploitation, resource extraction, climate change, and
other stresses.
Nairobi, 6 July 2020 – As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take
lives and disrupt economies across the world, a new report warns
that further outbreaks will emerge unless governments take active
measures to prevent other zoonotic diseases from crossing into the
human population, and sets out ten recommendations to prevent
future pandemics.
The report, Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how
to break the chain of transmission, is a joint effort by the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International
Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
It identifies seven trends driving the increasing emergence of
zoonotic diseases, including increased demand for animal protein; a
rise in intense and unsustainable farming; the increased use and
exploitation of wildlife; and the climate crisis. The report finds
that Africa in particular, which has experienced and responded to a
number of zoonotic epidemics including most recently, to Ebola
outbreaks, could be a source of important solutions to quell future
outbreaks.
“The science is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and
destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady
stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the
years ahead,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.
“Pandemics are devastating to our lives and our economies, and as
we have seen over the past months, it is the poorest and the most
vulnerable who suffer the most. To prevent future outbreaks, we
must become much more deliberate about protecting our natural
environment.”
A “zoonotic disease” or “zoonosis” is a disease that has passed
into the human population from an animal source. COVID-19, which
has already caused more than half a million deaths around the
world, most likely originated in bats. But COVID-19 is only the
latest in a growing number of diseases – including Ebola, MERS,
West Nile fever and Rift Valley fever – whose spread from animal
hosts into human populations has been intensified by anthropogenic
pressures.
Every year, some two million people, mostly in low- and middle-
income countries, die from neglected zoonotic diseases. The same
outbreaks can cause severe illness, deaths, and productivity losses
among livestock populations in the developing world, a major
problem that keeps hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers in
severe poverty. In the last two decades alone, zoonotic diseases
have caused economic losses of more than $100 billion, not
including the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is expected to
reach $9 trillion over the next few years.
African countries have an opportunity to lead pandemic prevention
efforts
Zoonotic diseases are on the rise everywhere on the planet, and
African countries – a number of which have successfully managed
deadly zoonotic outbreaks – have the potential to leverage this
experience to tackle future outbreaks through approaches that
incorporate human, animal and environmental health. The continent
is home to a large portion of the world’s remaining intact
rainforests and other wild lands. Africa is also home to the
world’s fastest-growing human population, leading to an increase in
encounters between livestock and wildlife and in turn, the risk of
zoonotic diseases.
“The situation on the continent today is ripe for intensifying
existing zoonotic diseases and facilitating the emergence and
spread of new ones,” said ILRI Director General Jimmy Smith. “But
with their experiences with Ebola and other emerging diseases,
African countries are demonstrating proactive ways to manage
disease outbreaks. They are applying, for example, novel risk-based
rather than rule-based approaches to disease control, which are
best suited to resource-poor settings, and they are joining up
human, animal and environment expertise in proactive One Health
initiatives.”
The report’s authors identify the One Health approach -- which
unites public health, veterinary and environmental expertise -- as
the optimal method for preventing as well as responding to zoonotic
disease outbreaks and pandemics.
Participants in media sensitization activity held on 15 November 2019 at ILRI Nairobi, Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu).]
10 recommendations
The report identifies ten practical steps that governments can take
to prevent future zoonotic outbreaks:
- Investing in interdisciplinary approaches, including One
Health;
- Expanding scientific enquiry into zoonotic diseases;
- Improving cost-benefit analyses of interventions to include
full-cost accounting of societal impacts of disease;
- Raising awareness of zoonotic diseases;
- Strengthening monitoring and regulation practices associated
with zoonotic diseases, including food systems;
- Incentivizing sustainable land management practices and
developing alternatives for food security and livelihoods that do
not rely on the destruction of habitats and biodiversity;
- Improving biosecurity and control, identifying key drivers of
emerging diseases in animal husbandry and encouraging proven
management and zoonotic disease control measures;
- Supporting the sustainable management of landscapes and
seascapes that enhance sustainable co-existence of agriculture and
wildlife;
- Strengthening capacities among health stakeholders in all
countries; and
- Operationalizing the One Health approach in land-use and
sustainable development planning, implementation and monitoring,
among other fields.
The report launch comes on World Zoonoses Day, observed by research
institutions and nongovernmental entities on 6 July, which
commemorates the work of French biologist Louis Pasteur. On 6 July
1885, Pasteur successfully administered the first vaccine against
rabies, a zoonotic disease.
*********************************************************
Preventing the next pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break
the chain of transmission
Section Four Managing and preventing zoonoses:
This section sets out the One Health approach as the most
promising way to manage and prevent zoonoses; it also gives
examples of its past successes and discusses some of the potential
barriers to a wider uptake. Lessons from managing previous zoonotic
outbreaks, including pandemics, are shared and discussed.
The One Health approach to controlling Zoonoses
Humanity’s experience in public health over the past centuries
allows us to draw some broad lessons about effective management of
zoonoses. The One Health approach can be defined as the
collaborative effort across multiple disciplines to attain optimal
health for people, animals and the environment. This approach has
emerged as a key tool for preventing and managing diseases
occurring at the interface of human, animal and environment health.
At the same time, a closely related approach, known as “EcoHealth”
has been defined as a set of systemic, participatory approaches
necessary to understanding and promoting both health and well-being
in the context of social and ecological interactions. Both the One
Health and EcoHealth approaches emphasize multidisciplinary
collaboration for holistic interventions that attain not only human
health goals but also animal and environment health targets, the
latter two of which are central to improving the control of
neglected and emerging infectious diseases, many of which are
zoonoses.
Though both One Health and EcoHealth approaches sit at the nexus of
human, animal and environmental interactions, they have subtle
differences: One Health, as generally practiced, emphasizes
biomedical animal and human health, while EcoHealth pays more
attention to the broader relations between health and ecosystems,
focusing on the environment and related socio-economic systems. A
third concept, “Planetary Health,” focuses on human health in
relation to global sustainability. As none of these terms has an
agreed or standardized definition, and given their convergence and
similarities, this assessment report adopts One Health as the
umbrella term, as it can be most easily understood by decision-
makers and the general public.
As we have seen, zoonotic diseases involve and affect human health,
animal health and environment health.
The pathogens originate in animals, and the emergence or spillover
of the diseases they cause in humans is usually the result of human
actions, such as intensifying livestock production or degrading and
fragmenting ecosystems, or exploiting wildlife unsustainably. As
such, their management should be inter-sectoral. At the global
level, three intergovernmental organisations, from different
sectors, have specific mandates that address zoonotic diseases: the
World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal
Health (OIE), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
In response to the bird flu (HPAI) pandemic, these three
intergovernmental organisations along with UNICEF, the United
Nations System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC), and the World Bank
developed a strategic framework for reducing the risks of emerging
zoonoses.
This framework has five strategic elements that remain relevant
today:
1. Build robust and well-governed public and animal health systems
compliant with the WHO International Health Regulations (the
amendment entered into force in July 2016) and OIE international
standards through the pursuit of long-term interventions.
2. Prevent regional and international crises by controlling disease
outbreaks through improved national and international emergency
response capabilities.
3. Promote wide-ranging collaboration across sectors and disciplines.
4. Develop rational and targeted disease control programmes through
the conduct of strategic research.
5. Better address concerns of the poor by shifting the focus from
developed to developing economies, from potential to actual disease
problems, and through a focus on the drivers of a broader range of
locally important diseases.
In 2010, FAO, OIE and WHO started collaborative work to address
risks at the human-animal-ecosystems interface as described in the
FAO/OIE/WHO Tripartite Concept Note. In 2019, they updated their
joint 2008 tripartite guide on zoonoses and other One Health
issues. Other intergovernmental organisations also have interests
in environment, animal and human health, notably the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP), some Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs) and the World Bank. The Convention on Biological
Diversity has developed Biodiversity-inclusive One Health Guidance.
And there are many other organisations, institutes, programmes,
government agencies and nongovernmental organisations working in
this space. CGIAR, for example, is the world’s largest global
agricultural innovation network; one of CGIAR’s constituent
centres, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), has
programmes working on livestock and human health and sustainable
livestock systems.
In general, environment health initiatives have been less well
represented than animal, livestock and human health initiatives in
global zoonoses prevention and control programmes. But the
environment is key to the emerging One Health approaches that are
spearheading zoonoses risk reduction and control at regional and
national levels.
Role of environmental health and its practitioners in Uganda’s One
Health programmes
Environmental health practitioners in Uganda have significantly
helped to reduce sickness and deaths caused by zoonotic disease
outbreaks such as Ebola. These practitioners work at the frontlines
of disease surveillance. Their tasks include the following:
• Inspecting livestock before slaughter as well as the meat in
slaughterhouses and butcheries;
• Monitoring the destruction of condemned meat;
• Investigating zoonotic disease outbreaks and monitoring disease
control programmes;
• Ensuring the control of disease vectors and vermin such as rats,
fleas, mosquitoes and monkeys;
• Providing communities with health education on pertinent issues
such as vaccination of children and pets;
• Involving themselves in all matters related to food safety; and
• Helping to enforce Uganda’s public health legislation.
In short, Uganda’s environmental health practitioners are the very
embodiment of the One Health approach to healthy people, animals
and the environment. To stop disease outbreaks in the future,
Uganda will be relying on this remarkable group of “environmental
health activists” to advise on, plan, implement, manage and monitor
the country’s many One Health activities.
*************************************************************
Frequently Asked Questions
Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break
the chain of transmission
By the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/32919/ZDFAQ.pdf
What are zoonotic diseases?
- Zoonotic diseases (also known as zoonoses) are illnesses that
are caused by germs that spread between animals and people.
- Examples of zoonoses include HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Lyme disease,
malaria, rabies, West Nile virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), in addition to
the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
- Certain animals are more likely to harbor zoonotic pathogens.
These include rodents, bats, and non-human primates, as well as
economically important livestock such as pigs, cows and chickens.
- The pathogens most likely to jump species from animal to human
are those that are widely distributed, mutate rapidly and have
multiple hosts.
In China's Guangxi province in 2004, Shi Zhengli releases a fruit bat after taking a blood sample. Credit: Shuyi Zhang. Source: Scientific American.
What is driving the spread of zoonotic diseases?
* In the last hundred years, the world has seen massive increases
in human populations, resulting in massive decreases in natural
environments. These two parallel trends are critical parts of the
complex chain of events that has triggered a rise in the emergence
and spread of new zoonoses.
* Many of the new zoonoses have emerged in low- and middle-income
countries.
* Seven specific factors are driving this trend:
o Increasing demand for animal protein
o Unsustainable agricultural intensification
o Increased use and exploitation of wildlife
o Unsustainable use of natural resources accelerated by urbanization, land use
change and extractive industries
o Travel and transportation
o Changes in food supply chains
o Climate change
…
Africa has an opportunity to lead pandemic prevention efforts
* Many African countries have significant experience managing
pandemics – including the recent Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo - and can use this experience to prevent
future pandemics. In Uganda, for example, officials have been able
to reduce sickness and deaths caused by zoonotic diseases,
including Ebola, malaria and Rift Valley fever. Their techniques
include using satellite systems to anticipate heavy rainfall
events, which can produce mosquito swarms that can trigger
outbreaks.
* By adopting a One Health approach that unites human, animal and
environmental health, African countries can take the lead in
developing and implementing strategies to prevent future pandemics.
[more FAQ in full document on-line]
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providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
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