Animal health related to the One health concept
The concept of One health has a fundamental link with the well being of organisms.
The link between humans, animals and environment
The growing population and its needs led us to an intensification of meat and fish production.
We can take the concept as a two pillars solution. On the one hand by controlling the exposition of livestock with wildlife to reduce the cross-contamination and on the other hand by controlling the risk of emerging diseases inside the livestock.
The first pillar refer to controlling zoonoses. There are many actionable measures that can be implemented in order to decrease the likelihood of transmitting disease from wildlife to livestock. Habitat loss and biodiversity loss is the first barrier, nowadays, wild animals are living closer to human than it has ever been. Practices such as wildlife hunting, farming, or trading bring people into great contact with pathogens carried by these animals.
One health paradigm and the microbial resistance.
The second pillar consists of having the best practice in the management of treatment. One of the obvious examples is the microbial resistance that is thriving in human health. The misuse of antibiotics has led most of our tools to be inefficient against diseases.
Considering that meat is widely part of our diet, if we don’t solve the problem of antibiotics in livestock, new resistance could emerge in our source of alimentation and spread to humans causing diseases that would have no tools (antibiotics) to control.