Erasing the Invisible Line to Empower the Pandemic Response

Nicola Decaro; Alessio Lorusso; Ilaria Capua

doi:10.3390/v13020348

Erasing the Invisible Line to Empower the Pandemic Response

Viruses. 2021 Feb 23;13(2):348. doi: 10.3390/v13020348.

Authors

Nicola Decaro¹, Alessio Lorusso², Ilaria Capua³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari Aldo Moro, 70010 Valenzano, Italy.
² Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise 'G. Caporale', 64100 Teramo, Italy.
³ One Health Center of Excellence, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.

Abstract

A challenging debate has arisen on the role of veterinary expertise in facing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It seems totally unreasonable that in most countries, veterinary diagnostic and tracing forces were not deployed at the start to perform strategic tasks, which could have mitigated the outcome of this dramatic health emergency. Erasing the invisible line between human and veterinary virology will empower the response to future pandemics.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; one health; pandemic response; veterinary virologists.

Publication types

Editorial

MeSH terms

Animals
Contact Tracing*
Humans
Pandemics / prevention & control*
Veterinary Medicine*
Viral Zoonoses* / epidemiology
Viral Zoonoses* / transmission
Virus Diseases* / epidemiology
Virus Diseases* / transmission
Virus Diseases* / veterinary