17 dic 2020 - 12:52 CET

Manifesto: Challenges of the XXI century in prevention, welfare and animal health

This is an analysis work promoted by Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, which collects the major issues to be faced in the field of prevention of infectious diseases, the welfare and health of animals to guarantee, ultimately, global health in the world. Likewise, the initiative is intended to promote debate around the One Health approach, a concept that expresses "that link that means that if animals are well, humans are well."

According to the WHO, every year five new human pathologies appear in the world, and three of them are of animal origin. At least 75% of the pathogens responsible for emerging infectious diseases have zoonotic origin , and some of them stand out for their economic importance and their great impact on public health. An exemplary sample of this reality is SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic.

This scenario has highlighted with more intensity than ever the need for a paradigm shift regarding the study of new diseases, taking into account that there is still a reactive agenda - it reacts once the outbreak has occurred - when it occurs. it should go towards a proactive agenda, based on anticipation. This means starting to research diseases before they make the leap from animals to the human population.

This is expressed by some of the most recognized experts in the field of animal health in a manifesto in which they consider essential "the interaction and collaboration between human and veterinary medicine" for the control of emerging pathologies of zoonotic origin, since its early detection in animals would allow the discovery or anticipation of more than 90% of the new zoonoses.

More information can be found here.

Click here to access the full manifesto (in Spanish).