Applications and Challenges of One Health Approach in Relation to Ethiopian Context

Abstract

As the human population continues to increase and expand across our world, the interconnection of people, animals and our environment becomes more significant and impactful. On the other hand, issues of global environmental change, global health, antibiotics resistant pathogens, food safety and emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases present some of the most complex challenges to the health of world population. As individual disciplines cannot address these issues in isolation, and the potential economic, health and environmental consequences of inaction are enormous. This review aimed at exploring some of the applications and challenges of one health approach. One Health offers a logical solution by recognizing the interconnected nature of human, animal and ecosystem health in an attempt to improve health and environmental policy, expand scientific knowledge, improve health care training and delivery, identify and address upstream solutions to public health challenges. This concept is founded on an awareness of the major opportunities that exist to protect public health through policies aimed at preventing and controlling pathogens at the interface between humans, animals and the environment. One Health can also enhance strategies for sustainable development, especially in areas, where health issues are relevant to threatened wildlife populations, people, and domestic animals. Despite its role in healthcare, operationalizing the concept of One Health requires overcoming many barriers including; difficulty in changing the mindset of health care providers from one of disease care to one of preventive medicine, general lack of awareness and need of education of physicians about one health. In developing nations, the lack of resources and informed personnel creates difficulty in establishing networks between animal, human and environmental health professionals. Although challenges to realization of one health certainly like financial constraints and lack of easy information exchange exist, it is critically important to develop this collaborative, cross-sectoral approach through focusing on specific investment in governance, particularly with regard to the allocation of public and private resources.

Keywords: Challenges, Food safety, One health, Zoonotic disease