How do we prevent future pandemics?

The way we treat wildlife needs to be hugely improved. Today, World Health Day, is an important opportunity to reflect on the interconnection between human, animal and environmental health.

Pangolin meat (c) JB Dodane

Today, we’re celebrating World Health Day, a global health awareness day which marks the founding of the World Health Organisation on 7 April 1948. Each year draws attention to a specific health topic, which affects people all over the world.  
 

Dr Mark Jones

Today kicks off a year-long ‘Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’ campaign, focussing on maternal and newborn health, while prioritising women’s long-term well-being. But, this year’s World Health Day has a particular poignancy, as our Head of Policy, veterinarian Dr Mark Jones, reports.  

This year’s World Health Day happens to fall on the first day of a final round of important negotiations between governments. These discussions are trying to secure a legally binding global agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The process, conducted under the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) watchful eye, was initiated back in December 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The aim is for a draft agreement to be presented to the World Health Assembly in Geneva this May, for adoption by the WHO’s 192 member governments. An agreement was supposed to be presented to the Assembly in 2024, but disagreements and political differences have resulted in long delays.

The forgotten pandemic?

Have many of the government officials negotiating the agreement forgotten the devastating impacts of Covid-19? According to official WHO figures, the pandemic directly affected more than 777 million people. More than seven million are reported to have died, and countless others have suffered long-term physical and mental health impacts. The cost to the global economy runs into trillions of pounds. The true figures are likely much higher.

The original source of Covid-19 has never been definitively established. Many scientists believe it most likely originated in wild animals. Others think it may have leaked from a lab, where experiments on viruses from animals were being conducted. It may then have passed through indeterminate wild or domestic animal hosts, before jumping to people. Similar coronaviruses have been found in bats and pangolins. But, no-one knows for sure.

The wild animal origin theory would fit with the widely referenced evidence that the majority (probably 60%) of emerging infectious diseases in humans are derived from animals (zoonoses). Most of those originated in wildlife. However, this only because we disrupt and stress wild animals by:

• Disturbing and destroying their habitats
• Collecting or farming them
• Transporting and trading them
• Mixing them with other species they wouldn’t normally encounter
• Bringing them into close contact with people

This is when viruses and other pathogens are likely to emerge, proliferate, mutate, spill over, and potentially affect us. Intensively farmed domestic animals can also act as a source of or conduit for potentially zoonotic pathogens.

Human health is tied to other species

A wildlife market (c) Bernd Dittrich, Unsplash

These are sobering facts. Plus it’s claimed there may be tens if not hundreds of thousands of as yet undiscovered viruses in wild animals that have the potential to jump across to people and other animals.

This highlights just how closely our own health is tied to that of the other species with which we share our world, and indeed the wider environment on which we all depend. This also highlights that  these risks lie not with the animals themselves, but in the way we interact with and treat them.

This is why Born Free has been working alongside other organisations focussed on wildlife protection and animal welfare. We are emphasising the need for the government officials, negotiating the pandemics agreement, to focus on strong measures aimed at preventing future pandemics. They must address the human activities that increase the risk of pathogens emerging and potentially affecting people.

What drives pandemic risk?

A recent landmark report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) explored the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health. It identified land- and sea-use change, as well as the unsustainable exploitation of wildlife, among the most important direct drivers of both biodiversity loss and infectious disease emergence.

Born Free is also pushing hard to ensure governments are committed by the pandemic agreement to adopt and implement a One Health approach to pandemic risk. One Health recognises the interconnection between human, animal and environmental health.

The approach seeks to ensure that those involved in human health, animal health and environmental protection work closely together. They can then design and implement research, policies and interventions that recognise and incorporate that interconnectivity.

An integrated, unified approach

One Health as a concept has been around for a long time and has been interpreted in different ways by people with different interests and expertise. However, in 2021, a definition of One Health was developed by a panel of experts. This has now been adopted by the WHO, the World Organisation for Animal Health, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and the United Nations Environment Programme.

This definition recognises that ‘The health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and inter-dependent…’., and the need to ‘…mobilise multiple sectors, disciplines and communities at varying levels of society to work together to foster well-being and tackle threats to health and ecosystems…’  

This definition should help empower governments and society to recognise the urgent need to transform our relationship with the natural world, for its own sake and for the sake of our health and future.

Preventing future pandemics?

Currently, the draft pandemic agreement includes sections which emphasise the need to identify and address the drivers of infectious disease at the ‘human-animal-environment interface’ to prevent future pandemics. It incorporates the need for governments to adopt and implement a One Health approach.

However, the language is still to be finalised and could fall foul of further political wrangling. It would also benefit from the addition of specific actions governments must take. There also needs to be a greater recognition that many developing countries will need help, in the form of both technical and financial resources, to effectively implement these actions.

Born Free will continue to push for the protection of nature and wildlife. There needs to be real improvements to the way we treat both wild and domestic animals, as central tenets to preventing further pandemics.

Only by taking better care of our planet and all the life that calls the Earth home, can we give generations to come the healthy beginnings and hopeful futures they deserve.