Implementing One Health as an integrated approach to health in Rwanda

Nyatanyi, Thierry; Wilkes, Michael; McDermott, Haley; Nzietchueng, Serge; Gafarasi, Isidore; Mudakikwa, Antoine; Kinani, Jean Felix; Rukelibuga, Joseph; Omolo, Jared; Mupfasoni, Denise; Kabeja, Adeline; Nyamusore, Jose; Nziza, Julius; Hakizimana, Jean Leonard; Kamugisha, Julius; Nkunda, Richard; Kibuuka, Robert; Rugigana, Etienne; Farmer, Paul; Cotton, Philip; Binagwaho, Agnes

If successful, Rwanda's One Health approach will result in speedier achievement of meaningful health outcomes with more innovative solutions to pressing health problems, and will serve as a model for other countries that may benefit from incorporating One Health principles into their national strategic environmental, livestock and health plans. tuberculosis), or through bites by arthropod vectors (malaria/leishmaniasis/Rift Valley fever). As we have recently seen with the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, in our interconnected world, an animal pathogen can catch a ride on the sole of a shoe, beneath a finger nail, or in respiratory passages, and travel from one remote corner of the globe to another in less than a day. Furthermore, zoonotic illness is not a small or insignificant problem; the majority of human pathogens are zoonotic (60%) and three-quarters of new and emerging pathogens are zoonotic from wildlife species. 4 5 However, One Health, which is larger than simply zoonosis (other examples include land use, water toxins, forest degradation and climate change (see online supplementary appendix A)), can have a great impact on people and the quality of their lives as well as local and national economies.