HEALTH - PREDICTing and Preventing the Next Global Pandemic

Preventing the next global pandemic is a priority for many health organizations.

Identifying risks is a critical part of the prevention process, and chances are good that the next major outbreak (like many of the previous) will be the result of a zoonotic disease.

Zoonotic diseases are those that cross species lines, like HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and both Avian and Swine Flu have.

Bubonic plague was another zoonotic disease, and so is malaria, which has been killing humans since 450 AD, and still infects a huge number of people globally.

Because zoonotic diseases are such a significant risk – 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases, and 60% of all human diseases, are zoonotic – responding to the threat is a major concern for global public health.

But how should health organizations, governments, and individuals respond? What methods are most effective at preventing the spread and impact of zoonotic diseases?

The answer is complicated.

One theory is the “dilution effect,” which suggests that biodiversity provides protection.

The underlying hypothesis of this theory is that maintaining a rich diversity of plant and animal species offers a buffer against zoonotic diseases.

It’s a good theory for multiple reasons, including the support it offers to conservation efforts.

If accurate, the dilution effect could be used to support increased focus on conservation and protecting the biodiversity that remains.

But the dilution effect is not a simple one, and some studies have found that increased biodiversity increases some risks while decreasing others.

A recent study found that protecting biodiversity did not have a consistent positive impact on human health, and this is not the ideal result for researchers who had hoped to find something that would clearly benefit both humans and the ecosystem within which we live.

Chelsea Wood, a lead researcher in the study, told Smithsonian Magazine, “I know that conservation provides so many benefits to human society beyond infectious disease transmission, but [with dilution theory] we consistently find a mixed bag, which is not a good outcome for people interested in selling conservation as disease control.”

Despite this “mixed bag” when it comes to the dilution effect, other efforts to address zoonotic disease risk are proving more consistently effective.

USAID PREDICT is a collaboration between University of California at Davis’s One Health Institute and School of Veterinary Medicine, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Health Program.

The program is now eight years old, and has collected samples from over 56,000 wild animals, trained more than 2,500 government and medical professionals in over 20 countries, and has provided support during 23 outbreaks and 4 wildlife epidemics.

The goal of the program is to monitor ecosystem health in order to recognize and respond to threats before they reach epidemic levels among wildlife, and before the disease can hop across species to infect humans.

And although the dilution effect is a mixed bag, the positive outcomes of the PREDICT program interventions are clear.

The 2014 Ebola outbreak, that ravaged many West African countries, killed more than 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016.

In contrast, that same year, an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo was significantly smaller and more contained, killing only 49 and lasting only three months.

The positive outcome was due to quick government response, enabled by the work that PREDICT had already done in training both medical staff and government officials.

The hope is that the PREDICT program can continue to work with governments and medical professionals globally, offering training and support to respond quickly and effectively to whatever new threats arise.

About Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a published academic, an editor with the Editors Association of Canada, an independent scholar and researcher, and a self-care and narrative coach. She is particularly interested in the intersection of technology and identity - how our tools shape our selves and change our stories, and in how the nature of work is changing as we incorporate more technology into our daily lives. 

INNOVATION - Space Station to be Used for Animal Conservation

A breakthrough in animal tracking technology could lead to revolutionizing the way man tracks animals across the globe.

The ICARUS Initiative (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space), founded by Martin Wiselski and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, is getting ready to launch a new technology that Wiselski has dubbed as ‘the best ever possible sensing network of life on the planet’.

(NASA)

The technology is ‘extremely light radio tags that can be attached to the tiniest of animals’ and will be launched and implemented in the Russian Service Module of the International Space Station in June 2017 – with the ability to monitor and track hundreds, or possibly thousands of birds, bats and other animals in real time.

This ‘space station safari’ could result in major contributions to global species conservation efforts.

The potential impact of ICARUS is yet to be determined. Scientists are confident the project will enable them to not only better understand animals and their migratory habits, but it will help them understand more about the planet – including pathways and hiding places for animal-borne diseases and other pathogens such as the West Nile virus, SARS and bird flu, as well as the ability of animals to anticipate natural disasters.

For decades scientists have faced hurdles over how to map the courses of such animals, as satellite telemetry tags continue to be slow and expensive; with the smallest weighing at least 10 grams, this proves too weighty for any tiny avian species weighing less than 240 grams.

Wiselski came across the idea over conversation with George Swenson, one of the pioneers of using radio telemetry for tracking wildlife and one of the constructors of the Very Large Array – a radio astronomy observatory located 80 km west of Socorro, New Mexico; that was 15 years ago.

The hardest obstacle was funding.

“We went to NASA,” said Wisleski in an interview with The Atlantic. “They thought the project so unlikely that it was set in the same category as the space elevator.”

Eventually funds were secured from the German Aerospace Centre and the Max Planck Society to make the first small tags. The first generation weighed in at 5 grams and ‘comes equipped with a solar panel, GPS, and a huge memory, and can measure acceleration, temperature, bearing, pressure, light intensity, and more.’

Animals, essentially, will become easy-to-track sensors for researchers. Over time, the data will be loaded to a MoveBank – a free online animal tracking database.

Non-binding orders for ICARUS satellite tags are available to researchers now. 

By Lindsay Seewalt
Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.

HEALTH - One Health Initiative: Uniting Human and Animal Medicine

With outbreaks of diseases such as avian flu, swine flu, and Ebola, there has been increased awareness of the risks associated with zoonotic diseases. (Zoonotic diseases are any diseases that can spread from animals to humans.)

 

Researchers are looking into how these diseases cross species barriers, spread through populations, and are impacted by environmental factors.

New research has made it clear that effective health management requires a holistic and integrated understanding of disease development and spread.

Each of the various disciplines involved – veterinarians, physicians, molecular biologists, ecologists, environmental chemists, and others – are better able to respond to existing and emerging concerns when they collaborate with each other.

The United States Department of Agriculture has taken a “One Health” approach for some time, meaning that they view human, animal, and environmental health as connected. In a recent blog post they state that health issues must “be solved through improved communication, cooperation, and collaboration across disciplines and institutions.”

As a step towards this communication, cooperation, and collaboration, they have recently launched a centralized web portal page to allow everyone, from stakeholders to the public, to access up to date information on programs, policies, and current issues.

Some of the topics that the USDA believes require a One Health approach are antimicrobial resistance, avian influenza, and influenza in swine.

Each specific topic is addressed in detail on the new site, with overviews, resources, and even links to information about research funding options.

The USDA partners with US Fish and Wildlife, US Food and Drug Administration, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and tribal Nations, as well as working internally with each of its many branches.

The USDA’s One Health portal site is an important step for American integrative health management, and the concept of cross-discipline collaborative health management is gaining traction globally.

The One Health Initiative is a global initiative that also hopes to expand interdisciplinary collaboration for human, animal, and environmental health. Their website has been active since 2008, and although the One Health Initiative is separate from the USDA’s One Health portal, they also work with organizations such as the CDC and the USDA.

Other global initiatives include One Health Sweden, which works to integrate research about zoonotic infections from various disciplines, and the One Health Congress, which first met in February 2011 in Melbourne, Australia and has met every year since.

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

HEALTH - New Model for Predicting Spread of Zoonotic Diseases

Zoonotic diseases are those that spread from animals to humans, and they are a big problem for global health.

The Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases estimates that “at least 60 percent of all human pathogens are zoonotics… and 75 percent of recently emerging infectious diseases that affect humans are of animal origin.”

(Aedes aegypti - by Muhammed Mahdi Karim)

Zoonotic diseases can originate in pet animals (think of the many diseases that can be passed from pets to people), farm animals (for example, foot-and-mouth disease), or wildlife (Zika, malaria, and many others).

One of the global outbreaks being addressed right now is Zika virus which is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. This mosquito also spreads yellow and dengue fevers.

 

Given how many diseases originate with animals, understanding how diseases spread within animal populations offers the ability to respond quickly and effectively to existing and emerging outbreaks.

New research published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution by scientists at University College London has offered a model for predicting zoonotic disease spread.

This is the first model that accounts for global changes due to agriculture, global climate change, and human population growth.

It moves beyond current prediction methods to offer an “environmental-mechanistic framework” that allows for modeling the impact of global change on spillover from the host species to humans.

The researchers used Lassa fever virus as a case study, but they stress that applying the model to multiple diseases is critical in coming up with a cohesive understanding of how global changes impact disease spread.

Since changes may increase the incidence of spillover for one disease but decrease incidence for another disease, looking at the issue from multiple angles and accounting for multiple diseases is necessary.

Researchers hope to extend their environmental-mechanistic model to include factors such as human travel, human-to-human contact rates after initial spillover, and the impact of socioeconomic factors such as poverty.

By extending the model, they will be better able to predict the potential number of infections, as well as predicted rates of fatality and costs to affected communities.

This new information will allow governments and health agencies to plan for, and respond to, zoonotic diseases as they spread.

Understanding how host animals are impacted by global change will allow organizations to respond more effectively to zoonotic diseases as they spill over to the human population.

It may be possible to affect change in ways that minimize disease spread, and to put preventative measures in place in areas where global change is resulting in increased risk and spillover.

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.