One Health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and many organizations of the likes have adopted a specific practice of incorporating wildlife, environment, and human population in regard to general health and wellness. This practice, otherwise known as ‘One Health,’ was coined and fathered by Calvin Schwabe in the twentieth century. Schwabe, whose focus lie in preventative veterinary medicine, claimed that veterinary health and human health were inseparable; that health “is concerned in varying degrees with problems in agriculture, biology, and [human] health.(1)” Human Immunodeficiency Virus has spread globally and its concentration is deep within all sanctions of the world. There is no cure, and it seems virtually non-erasable. However, with a One Health perspective and an open mind on a global scale, the roots to HIV and SIV can be further traced, studied, and the outcome and prevalence of HIV itself can be significantly decreased.

For example, with infinite funds, sexual protection can be implemented universally. Contraceptives and sexual practices should become normalized and recognized as a biological happening. Therefore, expenses decrease to the point of availability, making them free in most (if not all) places. Furthermore, the purchase of needles and the general knowledge of drug use should be significantly decreased. More education on the drastic health impact of drugs should further shy individuals away from usage. Additionally, governmental attentiveness to poverty-stricken communities, financially and morally, could drive an uplift in employment, mood, and indirectly discourage practices that lead to the spread of HIV – unprotected sex, drug sharing, etc. This is just from a human perspective.

From a forestry perspective, deforestation and an increased concentration of individuals almost always leads to a high percentage of disease spread and contact. Deforestation further implements issues in crop growth and production, directly causing a decrease of food and income in households. The result of economic poverty can drive others to extremes, and spur transmission of HIV.

The original source of HIV itself is SIV – simian immunodeficiency virus – as a result of poor hunting practices. The hunting of bushmeat is a commonly brutal process and may cause wounds – cuts, scratches, bites, etc. Viruses are RNA-based cells, and therefore mutate and evolve quickly. Deforestation and animal interaction – both linked to one another – originally were the source of HIV’s emergence.

The solution to deforestation are many. One that could relate to HIV in particular would be along the lines of safe sex. Protection during intercourse could limit chances of not only HIV spread, but pregnancy as well. Population decline requires less intake of timber and less spread of land.

A One Health perspective isn’t limited to HIV, or disease in general. There are other human-related factors that increase the chances of declining health and harmfulness to the environment. Coal, a fossil fuel, fired from power plants is linked with asthma, cancer, and neurological problems, which drastically affects human health. There is a direct link to acid rain and global warming, which is continually destroying wildlife and the environment surrounding. The solution? To reduce emissions from coal and power plants. Using natural gases as fuels rather than coal will provide heat by hydrogen, resulting in fewer CO2 emissions, and therefore inspiring less radiation as a result.

1. https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/130701m.aspx