But as long as these surveillance systems depend on diseases that have already emerged, they remain behind the curve and we risk 鈥溾 into the next pandemic.
Given the impacts of a changing climate on ecosystems, any surveillance of new disease outbreaks must include humans, animals and planetary changes.
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New and re-emerging pathogens
COVID-19 will continue to evolve into new variants despite high vaccination rates in some countries and the availability of antiviral treatments. At the same time, new diseases will continue to emerge.
In the first week of August, more than听听were registered worldwide and new reports of deaths continue to emerge. Ghana has declared an听听in July and Mozambique reported its听听in May.
Polio has now also been detected in听听and public health authorities in other wealthy countries are racing to head off the re-emergence of a virus that had been almost eliminated.
While the latter is most likely due to a global drop in vaccinations, health experts are warning that new pathogens, particularly those that jump between animals and humans, will听听as habitats change in a warming world.
Health scientists refer to diseases such as COVID-19 and monkeypox as zoonoses 鈥 pathogens known to be transmitted from animals to humans. Close contact between humans and wild animals is increasing as forests are destroyed to make way for agriculture and trade in exotic animals continues.
At the same time, the thawing of permafrost is releasing听. Taken together, there is an ever听.
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The link between human, animal and environmental health
Global climate models are increasingly sophisticated at projecting how climate change will affect听听and ecosystems. There are efforts to 鈥渃onnect the dots鈥 by integrating human and animal health and the 鈥渟ickness of the planet鈥, as described by the late Norwegian physician Per Fugelli in his听, In Search of a Global Social Medicine.
Incremental steps in integrating disease and planetary surveillance are under way. In 2008, the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization (), the World Organisation for Animal Health () and other organisations jointly drafted a framework for how听听and minimise the global impact of pandemics.
In 2014, a听听published in the Lancet called for an urgent transformation in our values, based on the recognition of our 鈥渋nterdependence and interconnectedness of the risks we face鈥.
In 2021, the One Health high level expert panel adopted a听听of an integrated, unifying approach that aims to balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems.
A听听to disease surveillance is now used by the African Centers for Disease Control and the global network to address antimicrobial resistance. In 2019, the UN鈥檚 interagency coordinating group on听听recognised that microbes that infect animals and humans share the same ecosystems and their prevention therefore requires a coordinated approach.
These are relatively recent initiatives in our effort to understand and track past, present and future outbreaks. There may be a long way to go in integrating disciplines, but the answer to predicting and preempting future outbreaks and pandemics lies in a One Health approach.
This article was originally published on听.听
