Humans, Other Animals and ‘One Health’ in the Early Twenty-First Century

Cassidy, Angela

The term OH first appeared in 2003, when it was adopted by several groups working across human and animal health, and subsequently by policy-makers, clinicians and researchers. 6 Its initial impetus came from renewed fears about the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases passing between humans and other animals. 7 In November 2002, as the veterinary epidemiologists celebrated Schwabe's career, a previously unidentified coronavirus that originated in an as yet unidentified animal was causing a global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), 195 which took six months to contain and killed more than 700 people. This was the first of a series of crises and near-crises related to zoonoses, including the emergence of new strains of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the mid-2000s. Such events refocused scientific and policy attention on the transmission of infectious diseases from animal to human populations. 8 They also brought wider recognition of the problems posed by the traditional separation of human and animal health in science, policy and the professions, particularly when (as in the case of HPAI) they created 'silos' that limited the ability to share knowledge or coordinate policy across international health organizations. 9 This situation resulted in calls for more effective and integrated working across these domains.