Post-COVID: Let’s Prevent the Nipah Virus Becoming Another Infectious Disease Nightmare
Our attention has been fixed on the COVID-19 pandemic as it ravishes our health and economies and destroys the fabric of societies. That our focus has been singular on COVID-19 has been right and proper, but we should not lose
Virus Mapping, Pandemics Preparedness and One Health: We Need Them All
COVID-19 is neither the first nor the last of major epidemics and pandemics. The impact of this infectious outbreak has led to huge ratcheting up of research and funding for therapeutics and vaccines to get a handle on this coronavirus.
COVID-19 Vaccines: Science and Scientists are Out to “Getcha”!
There is widespread concern about how fast the current COVID-19 vaccines were produced compared to other past conventional vaccines such as polio, measles, and other contagious diseases - and this has nothing to do with being “health illiterate”. The concern
Health Illiteracy – Why a Silent Epidemic Needs a “One Health” Approach
Health illiteracy haunts the COVID-19 response in most of the Western democracies. Health illiteracy is defined as the inability to comprehend and use medical information that can affect access to and use of the health-care system. Conversely, health literacy refers
COVID-19: Why More Than Vaccines Are Needed – One Health Approach
To control the COVID-19 pandemic, will a vaccine be enough? This article makes the case that more than a vaccine (or several vaccines) is needed and that bringing together the two major existing health systems that are now separate, one
How COVID Disrupts Education and Training of Physicians and Veterinarians
Not much is known regarding the lasting impact of COVID-19 on the education and training of healthcare professionals operating in both human and veterinary medicine. What is certain as of now, is that it is a threat to the kind
Bhutan and COVID-19: Lessons from a Small Country with Leadership
Two independent but intertwined strategies have had incredible success in keeping a small country’s people in far better shape in coping with COVID-19 than its huge neighbors and many rich countries. I am speaking of the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of
SDGs: Why They Need to Include One Health
The Sustainable Development Goals need to include One Health. And here is why. First, let’s take a step back and consider how the SDGs emerged, with their adoption by the UN General Assembly in 2015. They represented a herculean effort by
Coronavirus: Why China Needs to Change its Animal Health Policies
China’s troubles with the on-going coronavirus outbreak originate with its animal health policies and programs: They need to change and here is how. China is frightened and focused on the 2019 n-CoV virus, now called by the WHO “COVID-19” and by
Coronavirus from China: Why One Health Is The Solution
The 2019 nCoV coronavirus has now expanded from China to over 25 countries, killing more than 900 people (10.02.2020) and infecting over 39,000 - far worse than SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a lethal pneumonia-like virus) seventeen years ago. Wuhan, a
Are Pigs the Canaries in the Coalmine for Human Epidemics?
In 2018 there was a small hog farm in China which was found to have the hugely contagious virus known as African Swine fever, this in the country with half the world’s pigs. Shortly after the initial outbreak the government