One Health or Planetary Health for pandemic prevention?
Courtney Waugh, Su Shiung Lam, Christian Sonne
Abstract
It is a well accepted narrative that the disruption of forests, rapid urbanisation, and population growth are driving zoonotic events simply by increasing close contact between people and animals.1 However, these predictor variables (eg, urbanisation, land usage, human population density) only explain about 30% of the total variation in zoonotic potential.2 With advancing technologies, it has been shown that vertebrate RNA viruses, despite transmitting between species, have co-evolved with their hosts for millions of years, which only strengthens the theory that zoonotic diseases caused by RNA virus spillover, such as COVID-19, are linked to human activities and transformation of ecosystems.
Topics & Concepts
PandemicOutbreakCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Deforestation (computer science)Climate change2019-20 coronavirus outbreakSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)Public healthGeographyPolitical scienceEnvironmental healthEconomic growthMedicineEnvironmental planningDevelopment economicsGlobal healthMEDLINECoronavirus InfectionsEnvironmental resource managementBetacoronavirusHuman healthPlanetary boundariesZoonotic diseases and public healthCOVID-19 epidemiological studiesViral gastroenteritis research and epidemiology