"ONE HEALTH"

The concept of ‘One Health’ has been defined as “the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines – working locally, nationally and globally – to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment.”

One Health Platform Monthly Media Bulletins

IAP for Health recently co-hosted a session on ‘Tackling emerging infections at source’ in collaboration with the One Health Platform Foundation at the World Health Summit (9-11 October 2016) in Berlin, Germany.At the 2015 World Health Summit , IAMP co-hosted a session on “One World One Health” in collaboration with Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Deutschland).

Modern science has led to significant advances in both medical research and practice as well as veterinary research and practice and there is a growing realization that the two areas are inextricably linked. Epidemics such as the SARS virus outbreak of 2003 and the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) that derived from the bovine spongiform encephalitis prion (so-called ‘mad cow disease’), for example, both emerged from animals. Likewise, the 2013-2015 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa has been traced to an origin in bats, and the injudicious use of many antimicrobial drugs in both medicine and animal husbandry is leading to a crisis of antimicrobial resistance.

As our global population continues to grow, increasing demands are placed on the environment for food production and living space. Pristine areas of natural environments are increasingly encroached upon, while there is continuous pressure to increase production efficiency and yields of both livestock and crops.

These pressures create an environment in which closer interactions between humans and animals result in the transmission and propagation of pathogens as well as the cycling between organisms of chemicals such as antibiotics and other drugs, as well as compounds used in crop protection.

Despite recent calls for greater integration between the animal and human healthcare sectors, however, the concept of One Health’ has yet to enter the mainstream and many researchers, physicians and veterinarians are unaware of this new ‘holistic’ vision.

By working with its member academies, IAMP is building awareness of the One Health issue among the medical and animal health research and practitioner communities around the world.

Among the activities carried out to date are:

IAMP Co-hosted a symposium “One World One Health” at the 2015 World Health Summit (11 – 13 October 2015) Berlin, German
IAMP Coordinator, Peter McGrath, attended the International One Health Congress in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 14-18 March 2015 to make connections and develop IAMP activities in this area. See: One health – health for all.
IAMP has become a member of the One Health Platform Foundation.
IAMP endorsed the ‘Bucharest Declaration on the One Health Concept’ that emerged from the FEAM Spring Conference hosted by the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences (12-13 May 2014).
IAMP has a signed up as a supporting organization of the One Health Initiative.
IAMP published the ‘Joint IAP/IAMP Statement on Antimicrobial Resistance: A Call for Action’ (November 2013).
IAMP co-organized the IAMP/Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) Workshop on ‘Integrated Education in One Health’, hosted by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest on 5 June 2013.
The IAMP Statement: ‘Call for Action to Strengthen Health Research Capacity in Low and Middle Income Countries’ (May 2013) also has relevance.

IAMP will continue to work with its member academies to raise awareness of the One Health issue while reaching out to other organizations seeking to build global a network of experts in One Health that can help build capacity in One Health issues, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Publications

Emerging Viral Diseases: The One Health Connection: Workshop Summary (2015), published by the US National Academies Press (http://tinyurl.com/ol9vfjv)
The Communicator – Journal of the One Health Platform