Thread 1/n. #Covid19 has taught us that emerging infectious diseases of animal origin, #Zoonoses, are going to be one of the greatest global challenges, along with climate change. Tackling this requires strong interdisciplinary approaches #OneHealth thehindu.com/sci-tech/scien…
In this article, @PaulMridula and I showcase how India was a pioneer in OneHealth Science in the early 1960s to tackle Kyasanur Forest Disease. Read more about it here in this excellent piece by @NithyanandRao thewire.in/health/kyasanu…. @MonkeyFever_
Unfortunately, that model was not replicated widely, and our animal, public health and environmental health sectors went back to their individual silos. Breaking these silos is essential to tackling the threat of emerging zoonoses. The OneHealth framework needs to be replicated!
This involves bringing public health and animal health scientists, ecologists, social scientists and a wide array of government and private institutions to work together. We also need to not be insular, and work with international agencies and experts.
Unfortunately, our regulatory framework gets in the way. To work with foreign funding or collaboration requires navigating a maze of permits and regulations. E.g. @ICMRDELHI @icarindia @FinMinIndia @MEAIndia @moefcc #NationalBiodiversityAuthority etc.
Each of these permits can easily take anywhere from 3 months to a year. This prevents rapid surveillance and response to emerging threats. Worse, there are strong barriers to cooperation and collaboration between and within agencies, with unnecessary turf wars.
But, we now have an opportunity to leap-frog over these issues. The National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well Being, led by the @PrinSciAdvGoI, explicitly links biodiversity to human health through the OneHealth framework.
The OneHealth programme aims to encourage team science by having networks of institutions collectively bid for grants to set up integrated OneHealth surveillance systems across India at 25 sentinel surveillance sites in potential emerging infectious disease hotspots.
The #OneHealth program puts money to bring together gov & pvt inst., across disciplines - virology, epidemiology, genomics, ecology, animal sciences & social sciences - to understand emergence of zoonotic disease the threats they pose, & the way in which spread can be controlled
