Establishment of a Consortium for One Health to address Zoonotic and Transboundary Diseases in India, including the Northeast Region
Zoonotic and transboundary animal diseases impose a huge pecuniary burden on any nation, but particularly on lower- and middle-income countries, including India. The present proposal envisages carrying out surveillance of important bacterial, viral and parasitic infections of zoonotic as well as transboundary pathogens in India, including the Northeast, through the use of existing diagnostic tests,andthe development of additional methodologies when required,for the surveillance and for understanding the spread of emerging diseases. The scope of the application lies in understanding the pervasiveness of specific animal pathogens, their threat to animal health, their zoonotic potential and threat to human health, and for the incursion and/or reappearance of animal diseases across India.
Microbes lead to at least a quarter of all the human deaths. About 60% of human diseases, and more than 75% of all emerging human pathogens are zoonotic in nature. Besides the adaptation of microbes, anthropogenic factors, such as ecological changes, intensive farming, food production and trade, and human behaviour contribute to the emergence and sustenance of such pathogens.
In addition, transboundary animal diseases (TADs) have the potential to spread rapidly across national borders, especially in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where agrarian practices are the backbone of economy. Certain TADs decrease immunity of the animals, allowing other zoonotic pathogens to thrive and be propagated easily. Therefore, there is a requirement for evidence-based studies to tackle zoonoses and TADs through comprehensive research in various areas. While research in understanding host-pathogen interaction, and development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics are being undertaken by several agencies, the foundation for all this is disease surveillance, which underpins interdiction of their origin and/or spread. Studying disease incidence/prevalence, understanding animal reservoirs, modes of maintenance and transmission, and if needed, elucidation of genotypes and serotypes is the basis of any infectious disease research. Influence of anthropogenic and environmental factors may complement these studies.
India’s uniqueness of varied agro-climatic conditions, agrarian practices,close interaction with animals and ecological transformation are all a perfect recipe for the spread of zoonosis. The Northeast Region (NER), with its unique geography (international borders), ethnographic (tribal, rural, urban) and ecological (contour, weather, vegetation, wildlife) niche, and agricultural (intensive as well as fringe) and animal husbandry (farms, backyard, migratory) practices, presents a unique opportunity to study TADs. Since pathogens from the NER can be carried to distant places by humans, animals and animal products, such studies have far-reaching implications on control and spread of infectious diseases. Therefore, there is a critical need to study spatial, temporal and directional appearance and spread of zoonoses and TADs.
It is thus a consortium of infectious disease and public health researchers has been set-up to initiate a One Health programme with the ultimate objective of establishing inter-sectoral collaborations among veterinary, medical, agricultural, environmental, forestry, meteorological and other areas to detect, prevent and control zoonoses and TADs. For this, a number of partnering institutions/organizations, including seven institutions/organizations and eight disease investigation laboratories from the North-eastern region and ten institutions/organizations from outside the northeast, will work coherently to initiate and/or improve surveillance of select diseases, and initiate mechanisms to establish border posts to detect and control the entry of pathogens and their reservoirs, especially those of ruminants and swine. It is also proposed to address disease forecasting as well as mitigation strategies while preparing standard operating procedures (SOPs) for preparedness to tackle specific diseases. We will generate appropriate indigenous resources within the country such as reagents for diagnostic assays, including platforms for generating monoclonal antibodies and animal models to study mechanism and prognosis of few new and emerging diseases; these platforms and/or reagents can be made available to other researchers for investigating the molecular basis of disease pathogenesis, for determining targets for disease intervention, and to develop vaccines and diagnostics. Five medical institutions are also included for providing clinical inputs in terms of patient samples and medical history throughout the year to relate with implications of surveillance in animals to human health as a consequence of the select zoonoses being studied. The program is envisaged to be dynamic, leaving scope for inclusion of diseases which emerge, re-emerge or pose cross-border threat, through the modification of existing activities, or the incorporation of additional activities/ institutions from time to time, based on prevailing field conditions and following the advice of experts.
At Nagpur Veterinary College the project sanctioned by DBT is being executed at Department of Veterinary Pathology, Department of Veterinary Public Health & Epidemiology and Department of Veterinary Parasitology.
Objectives of the project are:
The major transboundry diseases under study with “One Health Centre” are:
The project is multidisciplinary and operated at the Department of Veterinary Pathology, Veterinary Public Health & Epidemiology and Department of Veterinary Parasitology under the efficient and learned faculties.
Based on the sampling frame designed by the ICAR-NIVEDI, Bangalore the samples from the various animal hosts are collected for their screening by the serological and molecular techniques. The SOPs contributed by various centres are strictly followed for uniformity among the data generated. The medical counterpart included in the network also contributes for the parallel screening and human counterpart.
Deliverables
The deliverables of the network project will be: