Media release: No one-shot solution for millions suffering from neglected diseases
ESPA-funded scientists speak out as WHO promotes World Immunisation Week
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but when infectious disease is the problem, prevention shouldn’t stop with immunisation. A vaccine can protect a child or chicken against deadly diseases but it doesn’t tackle the drivers that make that disease emerge in the first place.
While recognising the vital role that immunisation plays in promoting global health, a group of leading scientists are calling for the adoption of a sustainable, ‘One Health’ approach to disease control as representing a more realistic hope for a healthy future for millions of poor people.
The call, from partners in the ESPA-funded Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium1, an international, multidisciplinary research programme considering animal-to-human disease transmission, comes as the World Health Organisation prepares to promote World Immunisation Week2.
Measles
Over two-thirds of all human infections are zoonotic – that is, they have their origins in animals. The rate at which these zoonoses have appeared in people has increased over the past 40 years and they are now responsible for 20% of sickness and death in low-income countries.
A case in point is measles, now making a comeback in the UK, which most likely originated from rinderpest, a deadly plague of cattle between the 11th and 12th century. Rinderpest recently made history by becoming the second only disease to be eliminated from the planet. This only happened when technology joined hands with community health workers to deliver heat-stable vaccines in war-torn and isolated regions.
Zoonoses include diseases which make global headlines, such as the highly contagious and deadly avian flu and Ebola. But they also include lesser-known diseases such as Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever and trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), whose effects have a huge and negative impact on poor people’s livelihoods and wellbeing.
For reasons of timeframe, cost, practicality, political will and public acceptability, focusing just on a top-down, pharmaceutically-driven and disease-focused solution such as immunisation is unlikely to be the best option for the millions who suffer from these neglected and under-researched diseases.
Ways forward
There are though positive and complementary ways forward based upon the growing understanding of the links between human health, animal health and the environment.
Professor Melissa Leach, Director of the ESRC STEPS Centre3 and lead researcher in the Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium, explains:
“Factors surrounding how and where people live and their contact with animals are the main drivers of zoonotic disease transmission. These drivers have amplified in recent years as a result of rapidly changing environmental factors, including urbanisation, intensified agriculture and climate change. The health of people and animals are thus interconnected, and both are linked to the ecosystems they inhabit.
“It makes sense then, that for the many millions of people at risk from zoonoses, a more practical route to the prevention and control of these diseases lies in understanding the complex pathways leading to disease transmission and the various interdependencies at play – and implementing a strategic One Health approach to disease management which takes these factors into account.
"One Health means vets, doctors and other animal and human health workers working together, as well as in tandem with those who live with and care for the environment, such as land and wildlife managers.
“This is difficult and will take considerable planning and time to implement, but it is both a sustainable and realistic way forward. There is unlikely ever to be a one-shot solution for many of the endemic and neglected zoonoses affecting poor people in poor countries.”
The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium is exploring the links between zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing by considering henipavirus infection in Ghana, Rift Valley fever in Kenya, Lassa fever in Sierra Leone, and trypanosomiasis in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Melissa Leach and other world-class scientists from the Consortium are available to comment on the science of animal-to-human disease transmission, the poverty implications of these infectious diseases and the One Health approach to zoonoses management.
For interviews or further information, contact Naomi Marks at n.marks [at] ids.ac.uk tel. +44 (0)1273 915606, or Catherine Holley at c.holley [at] ids.ac.uk tel. +44 (0) 915756. Out-of-hours tel. +44 (0)7881 456498.
Further information
Find out more about the Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium
Download a briefing on the One Health approach to zoonoses
http://www.ids.ac.uk/publication/zoonoses-from-panic-to-planning
Notes
1. The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium is designed to deliver much-needed cutting-edge science on the relationships between ecosystems, zoonoses, health and wellbeing, with the objective of moving people out of poverty and promoting social justice. Web: www.driversofdisease.org Twitter: @DDDAC_org The work is funded with support from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation Programme (ESPA). The ESPA programme is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), as part of the UK’s Living with Environmental Change Programme (LWEC). Web: www.espa.ac.uk
2. The World Health Organisation’s Immunisation Week begins on 21st April 2013.
3. The ESRC STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement centre uniting development studies with science and technology studies. Web: www.steps-centre.org
