A One Health strategy for emerging infectious diseases based on the COVID-19 outbreak

Qin Wu; Qianlin Li; Jiahai Lu

doi:10.1016/j.jobb.2021.09.003

A One Health strategy for emerging infectious diseases based on the COVID-19 outbreak

J Biosaf Biosecur. 2022 Jun;4(1):5-11. doi: 10.1016/j.jobb.2021.09.003. Epub 2021 Oct 28.

Authors

Qin Wu^{1

2

3

4}, Qianlin Li^{1

2

3

4}, Jiahai Lu^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
² Key Laboratory for Tropical Disease Control, Sun Yat-sen University, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.
³ One Health Center of Excellence for Research and Training, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory for Surveillance and Evaluation of Vaccines and Biological Products, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is as an emerging infectious disease (EID) that has caused the worst public health catastrophe of the 21st century thus far. In terms of impact, the COVID-19 pandemic is second only to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 in modern world history. As of 7 September 2021, there have been 220 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 4.5 million deaths. EIDs pose serious public health and socio-economic risks, and 70% of EIDs originate from wildlife. Preventing development of EIDs such as COVID-19 is a pressing concern. Here, taking the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, we illustrate the disastrous effects of EIDs and assess their emergence and evolution from a One Health perspective. We propose a One Health strategy, centered on 'moving the gates forward', for EID prevention and control at the human-animal-environment interface. This strategy may be instructive and provide early warnings of EIDs in the future.

Keywords: COVID-19; Early warning; Emerging infectious diseases; Human–animal–environment interface; One Health; Zoonotic.

Publication types

Review