The Human-Animal Link

William B. Karesh and Robert A. Cook

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005

Summary:  Recent outbreaks of avian flu, SARS, the Ebola virus, and mad cow disease wreaked havoc on global trade and transport. They also all originated in animals. Humanity today is acutely vulnerable to diseases that start off in other species, yet our health care remains dangerously blinkered. It is time for a new, global approach.

William B. Karesh is Director of the Field Veterinary Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society and Co-chair of the World Conservation Union's Veterinary Specialist Group. Robert A. Cook is Vice President of and Chief Veterinarian at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Finally, greater bilateral and multilateral aid is needed for efforts to gather, evaluate, and share information on infectious diseases that affect the wide range of living organisms present around the world. Too often, health experts focus on human health and agriculture alone, missing a huge part of the picture. More money must be spent on initiatives that include wildlife health and conservation in discussions of human health care; more money would also help stimulate the development of holistic efforts in areas of the world where they are most critically needed.

The obstacles to identifying, understanding, and sharing information about all infectious diseases on the planet may appear daunting. But they are no excuse for not trying. New, holistic approaches should be started at local and regional levels; such efforts are already proving efficient and cost-effective and are advertising the benefits of the new paradigm. Such small- and medium-scale efforts can be built up over time and run in parallel with higher-order, global coordination.

The time to launch such initiatives is now, before the next global pandemic occurs. Bridges must be built between different scientific disciplines, and trade in wildlife must be dramatically reduced and, like the livestock industry, properly regulated. Global health will not be achieved without a philosophical shift from the expert-controlled, top-down paradigm that still dominates both science and medicine. A broader, more democratic approach is needed, one based on the understanding that there is only one world -- and only one health.