COVID19: Alpha to Omicron What did we learn about Zoonotic jumps?

How OneHealth approach can guide us to better outcomes

We are fast approaching the end of the year 2021, and with it, thoughts of the future begin to occupy the quieter moments. But after another tumultuous year, what will reflection and planning for 2022 and beyond look like for global health preparedness?

From the sudden onset, wildfire-like spread and devastation caused in health, economic, social, political, and other fronts by COVID 19 a zoonotic infection is a signal that we need to be much more vigilant and respectful towards our environment. We are constantly reminded that Zoonotic jumps, which are the spillover of viruses from animals into humans, can not be neglected anymore if we don’t want to see the 10x to 100x of devastation these caused in the last two years. The emergence of the novel coronavirus causing this pandemic and an accelerated journey of COVID 19 from Alpha to Omicrcon via devastating Beta and Delta variants is an unfortunate convergence of many ecological and epidemiological drivers of disease spillover. However, these circumstances are not unique to this event

AIDS, SARS, MERS, Nipah, Ebola, current pandemic COVID19, and other zoonotic infections resulted from animal-human interactions that have led to a spillover of viruses from animals to humans. These occurrences will only increase in the future as we force out wildlife from their natural habitats to accommodate anthropogenic activities.

We as humans lack prior exposure to these viruses and hence lack immunity. When these highly transmissible pathogens spill and, if not contained, the conditions are set for an epidemic to take off and turn into a nightmare like COVID19.

Viruses regularly jump species to infect people, and most are not that dangerous. These viruses are either not that transmissible among humans or they do not cause diseases. But every so often, a pathogen with an unfortunate combination of transmissibility and disease severity leaps over species boundaries to infect the human population. With globalization, these emerging animal viruses can rapidly be exported to new susceptible communities, resulting in exponential transmission, overwhelming health care systems, and causing economic disruption, as we now have in our daily lives.

The spillover risk was also greatest from threatened wild animals that were declining in number due to exploitation or destruction of habitat.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of the One Health approach for preventing emerging infections and better understanding their epidemiology and management.

Zoonoses can have a devastating impact on human and animal health, livelihoods, agricultural systems, societies, and economies, resulting in periods of prolonged decline and long roads to recovery. The drivers of infectious disease emergence and re-emergence and the subsequent establishment of zoonotic agents are complex, including shortcomings in governance at various levels.

To head off the emergence of viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 epidemic, we seek the lessons learned from centuries of spillover from animals to people. We, the stakeholders belonging to varied disciplines, should attempt to understand how viruses like SARS-CoV-2 make these so-called zoonotic jumps to help spot the next big outbreak.

The OneHealth approach recognizes that the health of all living organisms is interdependent,  the product of connections among humans, animals, plants, and the environment they share.

The current pandemic and other emerging infections, as well as well-established endemic zoonoses and the continuing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), demonstrate the importance of OneHealth. The connections between the health of animals and humans, as they interact with and within their shared environment, point us to urgently and holistically address human, animal, and environmental health challenges.

The ethos that steers OneHealth implementation includes five fundamental principles: 1) equity; 2) holism and systems thinking; 3) inter-and transdisciplinarity, intersectionality, and multilateralism; 4) intersectionality (recognition that race, class, gender, and other social identities work together to make some groups more vulnerable to the impacts of infectious disease); and 5) OneHealth leadership and governance.

I hope our learning from the current pandemic will accelerate our journey towards OneHealth, securing our health and even our existence on planet earth.

Wishing you and your family a very Happy 2022