Explained | How One Health can help India respond better to health crises Premium

The economic benefits of One Health are understood in contrast to the cost of managing a pandemic with a non-One-Health approach. An assessment of the G20 Joint Finance and Health Taskforce estimated the latter to be around $30 billion a year. On the other hand, estimates by the World Bank have indicated that the former would cost $10.3 billion to $11.5 billion annually.

The concept of ‘One Health’ is currently gaining popularity worldwide; India has of late been taking significant strides to deploy concepts and strategies rooted in this idea to bolster the way it responds to health crises. However, One Health is not a new concept.

One Health is a holistic approach to problems that recognises the interconnections between the health of humans, animals, plants, and their shared environment. An early articulation can be found in the writings of Hippocrates (460-367 BC), who contemplated the relationships between public health and clean environments.

The 19th century German physician and pathologist Rudolf Virchow (1821-1863) later wrote: “Between animal and human medicines there are no dividing lines – nor should there be.” More recently, the eminent veterinarians James Steele (1913-2013) and Calvin Schwabe (1927-2006) have championed the value of ecology for both animal and human health.

Human population growth, urbanisation, and industrialisation have compounded the damage to biodiversity and ecosystems. These harmful environmental changes are linked to zoonoses – diseases shared between animals and humans. Researchers have estimated that 60% of emerging diseases that can infect humans are zoonotic in nature. They include bird flu, Ebola, rabies, and Japanese encephalitis.

In addition, humankind has also become beset by major issues of antimicrobial resistance, food safety and security, and the control of vector-borne diseases. Taken together, these issues warrant both the intersectoral management and the efficiency that characterises the One Health strategy.

One Health minimises resource requirements across sectors. An important way it does this is by encouraging coordination across governmental units, including the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Environment, and Science and Technology. Taking a One Health approach allows researchers to, for example, share their laboratories and findings, and ultimately make decisions that lead to resilient, sustainable, and predictable policies.

The economic benefits of One Health are understood in contrast to the cost of managing a pandemic with a non-One-Health approach. An assessment of the G20 Joint Finance and Health Taskforce estimated the latter to be around $30 billion a year. On the other hand, estimates by the World Bank have indicated that the former would cost $10.3 billion to $11.5 billion annually.