Linking humans, their animals, and the environment again: a decolonized and more-than-human approach to "One Health"

A time of decline: An eco-anthropological and ethnohistorical investigation of mpox in the Central African Republic

The Central African Republic (CAR) has experienced repeated mpox outbreaks since 2001. Although several mpox epidemiological risk factors for zoonotic and interhuman transmission have been documented, the reasons for more frequent epidemic outbreaks are less well understood, relying on vague explanatory categories, including deforestation, hunting, and civil unrest. To gain insight into increasingly frequent outbreaks, we undertook an ethnohistorical, eco-anthropological analysis in two CAR regions: the Lobaye prefecture, experiencing one or more annual outbreaks in the past decade, and the Sangha-Mbaere prefecture, with a longer history of mpox but less frequent outbreaks. We comparatively examined changing political economies, forest use practices, and understandings of mpox. In 2022, we conducted 40 qualitative ethnohistorical, anthropological interviews and participant-observation of forest activities in two languages (Sango and French). We compared contemporary practices with hunting, trapping, and meet consumption practices, documented through quantitative and qualitative observation in one research site, over 6 months in 1993. We find increased rodent capture and consumption in both sites in the past 30 years and expanded practices of other potentially risky activities. Simultaneously, we also identify important differences in risky practices between our Lobaye and Sangha-Mbaere participants. In addition, Lobaye and Sangha participants underscored historical processes of decline producing mpox among other emergences, but they framed these declension processes diversely as economic, political, nutritional, and moral. Our findings are important because they mobilize new types of evidence to shed light on the processual dynamics of mpox outbreaks in the CAR. This study also reveals variability across two sites within the same country, highlighting the importance of comparative, fine-grained anthropological and historical research to identify underlying dynamics of mpox outbreaks. Finally, our study points to the need for mpox interventions and risk communication accounting for these regional differences, even within a single country.

The effects of cities on quail (Coturnix coturnix) migration: a disturbing story of population connectivity, health, and ecography

The increasing impact of human activities on ecosystems is provoking a profound and dangerous effect, particularly in wildlife. Examining the historical migration patterns of quail (Coturnix coturnix) offers a compelling case study to demonstrate the repercussions of human actions on biodiversity. Urbanization trends, where people gravitate toward mega-urban areas, amplify this effect. The proliferation of artificial urban ecosystems extends its influence across every biome, as human reliance on infrastructure and food sources alters ecological dynamics extensively. We examine European quail migrations pre- and post-World War II and in the present day. Our study concentrates on the Italian peninsula, investigating the historical and contemporary recovery of ringed quail populations. To comprehend changes in quail migration, we utilize trajectory analysis, open statistical data, and linear generalized models. We found that while human population and economic growth have shown a linear increase, quail recovery rates exhibit a U-shaped trajectory, and cereal and legume production displays an inverse U-shaped pattern. Generalized linear models have unveiled the significant influence of several key factors-time periods, cereal and legume production, and human demographics-on quail recovery rates. These factors closely correlate with the levels of urbanization observed across these timeframes. These insights underscore the profound impact of expanding human populations and the rise of mega-urbanization on ecosystem dynamics and services. As our planet becomes more urbanized, the pressure on ecosystems intensifies, highlighting the urgent need for concerted efforts directed toward conserving and revitalizing ecosystem integrity. Simultaneously, manage the needs and demands of burgeoning mega-urban areas. Achieving this balance is pivotal to ensuring sustainable coexistence between urban improvement and the preservation of our natural environment.

Introduction: Disease Reservoirs: From Colonial Medicine to One Health

The introduction of the special issue "Disease Reservoirs: Anthropological and Historical Approaches" sets out the origins and trajectories of disease reservoir frameworks. First, it charts the emergence and elaborations of the reservoirs concept within and across early 20th-century colonial contexts, emphasising its configuration within imperial projects that sought to identify, map and control spaces of contagion among humans, animals, and pathogens. Following this, it traces the position the reservoir framework assumed within post-colonial practices and imaginaries of global health, with particular reference to the emerging infectious disease paradigm. The introduction shows that, in contemporary usages, while the concept continues to frame animals, humans and their bodies as containers of previously identified pathogens, it also emphasises the imperative of anticipating as-of-yet unknown diseases, harboured in the bodies of certain animals, through networks and techniques of surveillance. Consequently, the introduction argues that the notion of disease reservoirs remains intimately intertwined with concerns over the classification, organization, and management of peoples, pathogens, animals, and space. Finally, the introduction outlines the seven papers that form this special issue, stressing how they dialogue, complement, and challenge previous historical and anthropological approaches to disease reservoirs, with an eye to opening up new avenues for cross-disciplinary exploration.

What does One Health want? Feminist, posthuman, and anti-colonial possibilities

What does One Health want? Despite its touted interdisciplinarity, to date there has been limited engagement with the social sciences and humanities - in particular with streams of critical social theory that enable a response to this question. In this paper we draw on the critical social sciences to consider how One Health is defined, conceptualized, and positioned, and discuss what we see as vital challenges within One Health that both limit its potential for meaningful change and contribute to a potential for ongoing harm - namely, medicalization, anthropocentrism, and colonial-capitalism. We then advance three areas in the critical social sciences that hold potential for addressing these challenges - feminist, posthuman, and anti-colonial approaches. By doing so we seek to encourage a deeper transdisciplinarity within One Health - one that is open to a genuine engagement with insights from critical social theory and a re-orientation towards more creative and radical re-imaginings in the service of wellbeing for diverse peoples, animals, other beings, and the land.

A global analysis of One Health Networks and the proliferation of One Health collaborations

There has been a renewed focus on threats to the human-animal-environment interface as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and investments in One Health collaborations are expected to increase. Efforts to monitor the development of One Health Networks (OHNs) are essential to avoid duplication or misalignment of investments. This Series paper shows the global distribution of existing OHNs and assesses their collective characteristics to identify potential deficits in the ways OHNs have formed and to help increase the effectiveness of investments. We searched PubMed, Google, Google Scholar, and relevant conference websites for potential OHNs and identified 184 worldwide for further analysis. We developed four case studies to show important findings from our research and exemplify best practices in One Health operationalisation. Our findings show that, although more OHNs were formed in the past 10 years than in the preceding decade, investment in OHNs has not been equitably distributed; more OHNs are formed and headquartered in Europe than in any other region, and emerging infections and novel pathogens were the priority focus area for most OHNs, with fewer OHNs focusing on other important hazards and pressing threats to health security. We found substantial deficits in the OHNs collaboration model regarding the diversity of stakeholder and sector representation, which we argue impedes effective and equitable OHN formation and contributes to other imbalances in OHN distribution and priorities. These findings are supported by previous evidence that shows the skewed investment in One Health thus far. The increased attention to One Health after the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to focus efforts and resources to areas that need them most. Analyses, such as this Series paper, should be used to establish databases and repositories of OHNs worldwide. Increased attention should then be given to understanding existing resource allocation and distribution patterns, establish more egalitarian networks that encompass the breadth of One Health issues, and serve communities most affected by emerging, re-emerging, or endemic threats at the human-animal-environment interface.

Beyond global health: Redefining the ‘public’ in public health

The world has seen unprecedented changes over the last 50 years, with enormous gains in human health and living standards. Global public health has been a part of this transition to an interconnected and interdependent world, evolving from a medically based international health perspective to a global health discipline focusing on the social determinants of health and systems thinking. As we now face global challenges such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity and antimicrobial resistance, global public health needs to be transformed yet again. Public health needs to redefine its focus. To expand the scope beyond the anthropocentric – and to include nature and our planet as subjects and not merely resources for human well-being – is of the essence.

The Promotion and Development of One Health at Swiss TPH and Its Greater Potential

One Health, an integrated health concept, is now an integral part of health research and development. One Health overlaps with other integrated approaches to health such as EcoHealth or Planetary Health, which not only consider the patient or population groups but include them in the social-ecological context. One Health has gained the widest foothold politically, institutionally, and in operational implementation. Increasingly, One Health is becoming part of reporting under the International Health Legislation (IHR 2005). The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) has played a part in these developments with one of the first mentions of One Health in the biomedical literature. Here, we summarise the history of ideas and processes that led to the development of One Health research and development at the Swiss TPH, clarify its theoretical and methodological foundations, and explore its larger societal potential as an integrated approach to thinking. The history of ideas and processes leading to the development of One Health research at the Swiss TPH were inspired by far-sighted and open ideas of the directors and heads of departments, without exerting too much influence. They followed the progressing work and supported it with further ideas. These in turn were taken up and further developed by a growing number of individual scientists. These ideas were related to other strands of knowledge from economics, molecular biology, anthropology, sociology, theology, and linguistics. We endeavour to relate Western biomedical forms of knowledge generation with other forms, such as Mayan medicine. One Health, in its present form, has been influenced by African mobile pastoralists’ integrated thinking that have been taken up into Western epistemologies. The intercultural nature of global and regional One Health approaches will inevitably undergo further scrutiny of successful ways fostering inter-epistemic interaction. Now theoretically well grounded, the One Health approach of seeking benefits for all through better and more equitable cooperation can clearly be applied to engagement in solving major societal problems such as social inequality, animal protection and welfare, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and conflict transformation.

[The comeback of "one health" and global health: let us not make the same mistakes again]

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rediscovery of the concept of "One Health" and the idea that animals, humans and the environment are intimately linked. This is not a new concept, but it is still labile, contributing to inevitable confusion. There is still a lack of action on the ground, and "One Health" fails to integrate all three dimensions. This editorial aims to share six challenges for implementing the "One Health" approach in order to avoid the pitfalls of other global health initiatives. One Health programmes cannot be relevant and sustainable without the active involvement of communities. This deployment implies the necessary decolonisation of health, i.e. a rethinking of how programmes are governed, financed, formulated, implemented and evaluated, with and for the citizens and countries concerned. It cannot be done without addressing social inequalities in health and power issues. This approach leads to questioning the exploitation models of both agricultural and natural resources. Thinking about "One Health" implies thinking about issues and interventions from an intersectoral, inclusive and participatory perspective, from an interdisciplinary, if not transdisciplinary perspective, and understanding the resulting complexity. Finally, research findings should be taken into account to build public actions. Considering these different challenges and adopting a systemic and interdisciplinary perspective anchored in local contexts according to a participatory and inclusive approach thus seems essential to us to respond in an appropriate, relevant and sustainable manner to the issues associated with "One Health".

Where Rabies Is Not a Disease. Bridging Healthworlds to Improve Mutual Understanding and Prevention of Rabies

Deeply embedded in local social, cultural, and religious settings, traditional healing is part of dog bite and rabies management in many rabies endemic countries. Faith healing, which usually encompasses a more holistic approach to health including physical, mental and social dimensions, is rare in the context of rabies. In Gujarat, Western India, the Hindu goddess Hadkai Mata is worshiped by low-caste communities as the Mother of Rabies in the event of a dog bite to a person or their livestock. This belief might influence people's attitudes and behaviors toward rabies prevention but has never been investigated. Through 31 in-depth interviews with healers and staff of Hadkai Mata temples, this paper explores the system of knowledge around dog and human rabies that is built and shared in these places of worship and healing. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed looking for convergences and divergences with the recently launched National Action Plan for dog-mediated Rabies Elimination. Results suggest that while the etiology of human rabies as a social illness is usually explained as the goddess's wish to correct misbehaving people and restore positive interpersonal relations, there is some appreciation for the biological processes of infection that lead to rabies as a physical disease. Hadkai Mata is believed to cure rabies if her patients undergo the necessary process of moral growth. Although conventional post-exposure prophylaxis is not opposed per se, it is often delayed by patients who seek traditional treatment first. Some reluctance was expressed toward mass dog vaccination because it is seen as an interference in how the goddess controls dogs, by enraging them-hence infecting them with rabies-and sending them to bite wrongdoers. Addressing these cultural perceptions is likely to be critical in achieving effective control of dog rabies in this region. The study highlights the value of multidisciplinary approaches in the control and elimination of rabies, as well as other zoonoses. This includes the importance of understanding different culturally- and religiously- mediated ways in which humans relate to animals; and looking for points of convergence and mutual understanding, upon which context-tailored, linguistically-accurate, locally acceptable, feasible and effective strategies can be designed.

Context matters: Leveraging anthropology within one health

Anthropologists develop long-term engagements with communities, animals, and the ecosystems they all share. This approach can provide important context that is necessary for One Health research, which may otherwise overlook the perspectives and lived experiences of community members. This paper presents two case studies that illustrate the importance of leveraging long-term, holistic, engagements with communities in moving the One Health concept forward. The first illustrates the complexity of understanding the health of people and animals within the context of environmental change in South India. The second provides insights into how the conservation of endangered species requires considering the entanglements of people, domestic animals, and the landscapes they share with wildlife in Madagascar. We demonstrate the value of integrating anthropological perspectives within interdisciplinary One Health research and interventions to better understand the complexity of systems.

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One Health research should incorporate anthropologists and/or social scientists.

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Anthropology provides unique approaches to improve One Health research.

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Long-term engagements with communities will improve One Health research.

One Health: A social science discussion of a global agenda

This article introduces the Parasite issue dedicated to part of the research in social sciences supported by the Domaine d’Intérêt Majeur de la Région Île-de-France (DIM) One Health [2016–2022]. We show how the four papers of this special issue are related. Jérôme Michalon recalls the genealogy of One Health and analyzes it as an “epistemic watchword”. Using antibiotic resistance as a case study, Estera Badau demonstrates how “One Health” results from a series of formulas and the bringing together of a plurality of fields and actors. Nicolas Lainé and Serge Morand show how One Health fits in with attempts already initiated in the colonial period and context. They highlight the need to (re)legitimize local and non-human knowledge, in order to truly decolonize One Health and better prevent epidemic emergence. Finally, Frédéric Keck, Nicolas Lainé, Arnaud Morvan and Sandrine Ruhlmann show how zoonotic reservoir and cultural practices are linked in the context of three specific societies. This paper highlights two main contributions of social sciences: 1) To think about One Health genealogy, how the question is framed and by which actors. The questions of practices, social representations but also of the environment are less present than the issues of human and animal medicine. The Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, even some of its variations such as the “domesticoscene” thus appear to be key elements. 2) To propose methods and tools that make One Health operational, advocating a less asymmetrical view of types of knowledge (scientific, local, non-human) and more contextualized global health recommendations.

Supplementation of Aloe vera extract in lactating goats' diet: effects on rumen fermentation efficiency, nutrient utilization, lactation performance, and antioxidant status

The present work was conducted to investigate the effects of supplementing Aloe vera extract on rumen fermentation efficiency, nutrient utilization, lactation performance, and antioxidant status of goats. Twenty-four crossbreed lactating goats (Alpine × Beetal) were divided into three experimental groups (AV0, AV2, and AV4). AV0 had no supplementation, groups AV2 and AV4 received ready to feed aqueous extract of Aloe vera at 20 and 40 g/kg dry matter intake, respectively, along with basal diet and experiment lasted for 100 days. Average DMI did not vary (P > 0.05) among treatment groups; however, the metabolic bodyweight of AV4 was significantly lower (P < 0.05) than the AV0 and AV2 groups (AV0 = AV2 > AV4). Intake and digestibility of DM, OM, CP, NDF, ADF, and EE were unaffected (P > 0.05) by Aloe vera supplementation. The milk production, yield of milk fat, protein, lactose, and solid not fat (SNF) of goats in the AV4 group were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than other groups (AV4 > AV2 = AV0). The activity of superoxide dismutase and catalase enzymes and levels of plasma ferric reducing total antioxidant power were high (P < 0.01) in the Aloe vera supplemented group (AV4 = AV2 > AV0). There was no significant difference (P = 0.979) in the pH, acetic acid (P = 0.449), and butyric acid (P = 0.864) concentration of the rumen liquor among the treatment groups. The propionic acid concentration was similar between AV2 and AV4 and significantly higher (P = 0.024) than the AV0 group (AV4 = AV2 > AV0). Moreover, C2:C3 values were significantly lower (P = 0.037) in the AV4 group compared to the control (AV0). Thus, Aloe vera supplementation enhanced milk yield, propionic acid production, and antioxidant status without affecting nutrient utilization; however, results were better in the AV4 group. The inclusion of Aloe vera at 40 g/kg of DMI would improve the rumen fermentation efficiency, lactation performance, and overall health status of the dairy goats.

Mitigating Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Gorilla Conservation: Lessons From Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda

The COVID-19 pandemic, affecting all countries, with millions of cases and deaths, and economic disruptions due to lockdowns, also threatens the health and conservation of endangered mountain gorillas. For example, increased poaching due to absence of tourism income, led to the killing on 1st June 2020 of a gorilla by a hungry community member hunting duiker and bush pigs. Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), a grassroots NGO and non-profit founded in 2003 promotes biodiversity conservation by enabling people to co-exist with wildlife through integrated programs that improve animal health, community health, and livelihoods in and around Africa's protected areas and wildlife rich habitats. Through these programs, we have helped to mitigate these impacts. CTPH worked with Uganda Wildlife Authority and other NGOs to improve great ape viewing guidelines and prevent transmission of COVID-19 between people and gorillas. Park staff, Gorilla Guardians herding gorillas from community land to the park and Village Health and Conservation Teams were trained to put on protective face masks, enforce hand hygiene and a 10-meter great ape viewing distance. To reduce the communities' need to poach, CTPH found a UK-based distributor, for its Gorilla Conservation Coffee social enterprise enabling coffee farmers to earn revenue in the absence of tourism and provided fast growing seedlings to reduce hunger in vulnerable community members. Lessons learned show the need to support non-tourism dependent community livelihoods, and more responsible tourism to the great apes, which CTPH is advocating to governments, donors and tour companies through an Africa CSO Biodiversity Alliance policy brief.

One Health of Peripheries: Biopolitics, Social Determination, and Field of Praxis

Amid the urgency to solve countless and severe health problems, asking what is health or who can and must have it may seem like a waste of time. However, some responses can reveal prevailing practices that divert attention from fundamental problems, thus maintaining privileges and deepening health inequities. One Health of Peripheries arises from these questions and takes three interdependent senses. The first refers to attributes determining the well-being and suffering of peripheral multispecies collectives: a state, a process, the realization of capacities. The second problematizes marginalizing apparatuses that define health and who can and should have it. The third encompasses practices in more-than-human social spaces in which, and through which, One Health is experienced, understood, and transformed. The qualification of health as “one” does not refer to the lack of plurality, nor to the simple aggregation of health fragments (human + animal + environmental), but to the complexity of health in a field with peripheral places, ensuing from margins to privilege those who are inside and legitimize the exploitation of those who are outside. The interaction among margins creates degrees and kinds of privilege and vulnerability that materialize epidemiologic profiles while articulating different peripheral strengths and needs supports a collective resistance to break margins. Social determination, a key concept in the (Latin American) collective health movement, underlies such profiles. However, this movement overlooks the more-than-human dimension of social determination; that is to say, One Health of Peripheries is a blind spot of collective health. The cartography of One Health of Peripheries has unique needs regarding participation, research, and inclusive policies for the decolonial promotion of healthy lifestyles.

From Modern Planetary Health to Decolonial Promotion of One Health of Peripheries

The concept of Planetary Health has recently emerged in the global North as a concern with the global effects of degraded natural systems on human health. It calls for urgent and transformative actions. However, the problem and the call to solve it are far from new. Planetary health is a colonial approach that disregards alternative knowledge that over millennia have accumulated experiences of sustainable and holistic lifestyles. It reinforces the monolog of modernity without realizing that threats to "planetary health" reside precisely in its very approach. It insists on imposing its recipes on political, epistemological, and ontological peripheries created and maintained through coloniality. The Latin American decolonial turn has a long tradition in what could be called a "transformative action," going beyond political and economic crises to face a more fundamental crisis of civilization. It deconstructs, with other decolonial movements, the fallacy of a dual world in which the global North produces epistemologies, while the rest only benefit from and apply those epistemologies. One Health of Peripheries is a field of praxis in which the health of multispecies collectives and the environment they comprise is experienced, understood, and transformed within symbolic and geographic peripheries, ensuing from marginalizing apparatuses. In the present article, we show how the decolonial promotion of One Health of Peripheries contributes to think and advance decentralized and plural practices to attend to glocal realities. We propose seven actions for such promotion.

Social representations of animal diseases: anthropological approaches to pathogens crossing species barriers

Debates about emerging infectious diseases often oppose natural conceptions of zoonotic reservoirs with cultural practices bringing humans into contact with animals. This article compares the representations of cross-species pathogens at ontological levels below the opposition between nature and culture. It describes the perceptions of distinctions between interiority and physicality, between wild and domestic, and between sick and dead in three different contexts where human societies manage animal diseases: Australia, Laos and Mongolia. Our article also argues that zoonotic pathogens are one of the entities mobilized by local knowledge to attenuate troubles in ordinary relations with animals, and shows that the conservation of cultural heritage is a tool of mitigation for infectious diseases emerging in animal reservoirs.