Prevention and diagnosis of zoonotic diseases from a “One Health” perspective. The importance of interdisciplinary work

CAMBIAGGI, Vanina L.¹; CHIAPPA, Elsa² and ALFARO, Gabriel³

1 Dirección de Salud Animal y Enfermedades Zoonóticas, UNLP. La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2 Directora de Programas Académicos, UNLP. La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
3 Secretaría de Salud, UNLP. La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
E-mail address: vcambiaggi@fcv.unlp.edu.ar

One Health is a strategic framework that encompasses a broad disciplinary field with comprehensive approaches to address, animal and human diseases, among other issues, taking environmental, cultural, political, and socioeconomic components into account. In the early 2000s, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) adopted the One Health concept to promote the idea of interdependence between human, animal, and ecosystem health. In line with WOAH, the World Health Organization refers to One Health as a multisectoral approach that allows for the design and implementation of programs, policies, laws, and research in which multiple sectors communicate and collaborate to achieve better public health outcomes. The One Health concept assumes that there is a direct relationship between environmental factors, such as biodiversity loss, land use conversion, overexploitation, and the introduction of invasive species, among others, and their effects on animal and human health. Disruption of these relationships leads to the emergence of zoonotic diseases that pose a risk to the community, the family, and the individual. Zoonoses are a group of diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans through direct contact with a sick animal, bodily fluids, the presence of a vector, or the consumption of animal-based foods that have not undergone the appropriate health checks. According to the Pan American Health Organization, close human/animal interaction, increased commercial activity, and the movement of people, animals, products, and by-products, have led to a greater spread of zoonoses. Thus, there is a need to train professionals who are competent and capable of responding to the demands of today’s society, ensuring the health of the population, guaranteeing the health of animal species, supplying food of proven quality, and preserving biodiversity and the environment. Within this framework, the National University of La Plata (UNLP) Health Secretariat promotes programs that combine teaching, outreach, and research (“Programas de Articulación, Docencia, Extensión e Investigación”, PADEI) to train human resources in health services using “action research” as a participatory strategy that encourages the development of transformative community actions. Its objectives include improving the overall health of the target population by generating transformative community actions, training health professionals with social, humanistic, and health awareness, that are capable of effectively promoting health and preventing disease in the context of global development. This presentation showcases the experience of some PADEIs during 2022-2025 within the One Health framework, and the interprofessional course run by the Academic Programs Department of the UNLP Health Secretariat, in which teachers from different disciplines participated.

Keywords: One Health, Zoonoses, Interprofessional course