2.The Global Threat of Infectious Diseases Outbreaks

The global threat of infectious diseases outbreaks

VetPubHealth Journal ISSUE 17 IVSA Standing Committe on One Health April 2020 As a public health emergency, coronavirus outbreak highlights need to address threats to ecosystem and wildlife. Veterinary medicine, along with other sciences, is actively involved in the complex health challenges of climate changes that humanity is facing. The emerging and re-emerging zoonoses, as well as the consequences of the so called neglected and not sufficiently researched diseases, especially in the wild animals, have resulted with serious health consequences for the people, animals, the environment, and also socioeconomic problems. This article highlights the importance of the veterinary medicine for an active involvement of the health and welfare of wild fauna. In the newly created conditions by the climate change, wildlife diseases occur with more intensity, morbidity, mortality, and new biological characteristics which mean high risk for public health. The veterinary medicine makes efforts to follow the continual changes through intense monitoring, emphasizing the need for implementation of the concept One Health and cooperation among all relevant disciplines, especially human medicine. WILDLIFE PATHOGENS WITH ZOONOTIC POTENTIAL. Wild animals are an important reservoir of pathogenic microorganisms with zoonotic potential, which transmission is conducted by the free movement of the wild animals, as well as the international trade with wild animals and their products. The infectious diseases, around 60% of which are zoonotic, make a quarter of causes of death in humans. Most of them (>70%) are of wild animal origin, which shows a serious threat. (P.Lanfranchi et al., 2003, OIE, 2010). Pathogens in wild animals may affect human health, animal health and wildlife population. Wild animals can be direct or indirect sources of infection for people that can cause disease. Human diseases caused by wildlife zoonotic pathogens that became important in the past 60 years, includes: AIDS, Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Avian influenza, West Nile Virus, Leishmaniasis, Brucellosis, Tuberculosis, Ebola virus, Leptospirosis, Trichinellosis, Hanta Viruses etc. These outbreaks have served as examples of the potential seriousness of emerging zoonotic diseases to public health. For an example, AIDS viruses has adapted to people through genetic mutation and now are being transmitted between people, independent of their original source. (OIE, 2010) Currently, there is an outbreak of COVID-19 infections with scientific evidence that the virus has an animal origin. This emerging disease has pandemic potential with rapid geographic spread. Further research is needed to identify the source and the role of an animal reservoir in this disease. (OIE, 2020) Because of the concerns about COVID-19 transmission from wild animals to people and for better understanding the ecology of the disease, two species are suspsected for zoonotic transfer. Bats (Rhinolophus affinis) and Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) contains coronaviruses similar to SARS-COV-2, although there are other species that are undersampled. This knowledge could help scientists to better understand the natural evolutionary process and how a virus with animal origin jumped species boundaries to infect humans. (Andersen et al., 2020) ANTHROPOGENIC FACTOR – MAIN DRIVER FOR EMERGING DISEASES. Ivana Arsovska, Prof. M. Hristovski IVSA Macedonia 10

The world faces a crisis of extinction of species – the fastest disruption of the biodiversity in the history of planet Earth and these loses are related to the anthropogenic factor. Climate changes also affect the management of pathogens entering new environments with potential risk that leads to an emergence of a disease. The occurrence of wild animal diseases and their spreading, not only endangers particular species, but it is also a danger for disruption of the biodiversity and the ecosystems in nature. All these factors and processes that cause accelerated extinction of species and decrease in their populations, loss of genetic material and degradation of the ecosystems, can be considered threat to the biological diversity. The consequences of climate change to wildlife includes ecosystem changes, species interactions, human-wildlife conflict and diseases. (FAO, 2012). Major determinants that affect humananimal distribution of emerging diseases are ecological, environmental and socioeconomic.(Jones et al., 2008) The consequences of climate change on wildlife health and welfare are complex and includes mostly human behavioural factors: agriculture, infrastructure development, tourism/recreation, vehicle and train collision, trapping, poaching, illegal hunting, illegal wildlife trade, invasive species, deforestation, war/civil unrest, extraction of wood, fires, pollution etc. (Hristovski., 2001) Globalisation of human travel and (i) llegal wildlife trade address a public health concerns. These activities allows for infectious diseases to geographicaly spread very quickly, as was demonstrated during SARS outbreak in 2002/3 (Anderson et al., 2004) Social and cultural risk factors such as religious and ethics beliefs, law implementation, food habits and management patterns can also affect the emergence of zoonoses, Wildlife health monitoring deals with limitation to a few study areas and species. This makes the identification of diseases in animal populations difficult, and important diseases remain undetected or not investigated at all. The specific host-pathogen relationship should be an area of interest, as identification is an essential part in maintaining wildlife disease status. (Sainsbury et al., 2001; Lanfranchi et al., 2003) Emerging and re-emerging zoonoses, with their constantly evolving nature and wide variety of wild animal species that act as reservoirs for zoonotic pathogens, represent a challenge for veterinary medicine and human medicine. Wild animal pathogen surveillance is essential to public health management. In 2010, for effective surveillance of zoonotic diseases and other public health threats, tripartite collaboration has been made between OIE, WHO and FAO. This international partnership provides multi-sectoral, One Health approach addressing health risks and provide guidance on how to reduce these risks. Each member country report the number of zoonoses to the Organizations, as a part of their annual report. Global effort is required for understanding the ecology of diseases. We must understand that every scientific discipline is equally important and can contribute for a complete One Health approach. 11