Importance Of An Interdisciplinary Collaboration For The Prevention And Control Of Emerging Zoonotic Diseases

fast-food restaurant. We got a total of 13 groups signed up for the activity, and we had 17 people during the Talent show, as well as another 60+ viewers at both a zoom meeting and a live stream on the OEQF Facebook Page.

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A video was also made with photographs of Pharmaceutical Chemistry Students from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC) and the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). The theme of the video was Pharmacy students ’ life, and it was published on September 25 th on the social media pages from both OEQF (from USAC) and AEQF (from UVG).

This has been the most successful activity that OEQF has had on last year, regarding all the activities made on site pre-pandemic and on the online perspective, and we hope to maintain this expectation for the next celebrations.

In recent decades, humanity has had to face different kinds of challenges, social, economic and phenomena derived from climate change, such as Emerging Zoonotic Diseases (EZD). Zoonosis is defined as any infectious disease that animals and humans can transmit to each other. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines emerging zoonoses as those that have been recently recognized or of recent evolution, or that have occurred previously but show an increase in incidence, expansion of the geographic range, host or vectors (1). This text will address the threats that EZDs represent to social welfare, economy, and ecological balance. In the same way, an idea to address this problem and the challenges that this represents will be shared.

When it comes to nature, infectious diseases represent a threat to ecosystems since they are important biotic forces that can precipitate the decline in the population of wild species, which could impact the balance of ecological dynamics and lead to the loss of biodiversity (2). Regarding the impacts of EZD on public health, they cause millions of human deaths a year, the figures are alarming especially in developing

countries. It has been shown in different epidemics that health systems become saturated, there is also a shortage of drugs, and access to health becomes complicated. Hospital costs for the direct care of people for zoonoses are estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the United States (3).

Because EZDs are unknown, there is no specific management plan to prevent their occurrence. The possibility of an outbreak is always present in production systems of animals intended for human consumption. The impacts of the EZDs in this sector are of utmost importance, since it represents one of the main economic activities and food sources worldwide.

The possibility of EZD manifestation requires investment by governments, since they demand the allocation of funds for research on new diseases, experimentation with treatments, epidemiological studies, generation or acquisition of vaccines in the case of viral diseases, generation and implementation of control and prevention protocols, etc. The problem of EZD should be addressed under One Health approach, defined by the WHO as an “ approach conceived to design and implement programs, policies, laws and research in which multiple sectors communicate and collaborate to achieve better public health outcomes ”(4). Currently there are documents that include guidelines on how to prevent and control EZD, ensure animal welfare and environmentally friendly production. These documents are developed by experts from leading One Health intergovernmental institutions globally and are published so that different governments can base on them to develop their own public policies. Examples of these documents are ‘‘A Tripartite Guide to Addressing Zoonotic Diseases in Countries ’’ by the FAO, OIE and WHO; and ‘‘The International Standards of the OIE’’ . Another document that already addresses zoonotic diseases is the ‘‘Sustainable Development Goals ’’ by the United Nations.

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All of the above raises questions about whether: are the recommendations established in this type of document actually used by different countries to draft their own public policies? And, if they really do, are these policies actually followed properly?.

Developing, implementing and maintaining a national strategy to prevent and control EZD based on the principles of One Health represents a great challenge, which includes: creating national awareness within the medical and veterinary professions, the scientific community, government institutions, decision makers and civil society on the power of the One Health approach to improve the health of people, animals and the environment. From my perspective, there are still social sectors that are simply not interested in adopting solidarity actions and refuse to address the socioenvironmental problems that the current situation demands.