With the One Health effort having gained steam worldwide, the USDA is taking the next step in getting stakeholders on the same page. The agency is launching a web portal intended to bring together all of its information on antimicrobial resistance, avian flu and swine flu, plus other resources.
The One Health push, with support from industry, government and other organizations, seeks to grow research collaborations between animal- and human-health experts to tackle disease areas that impact both animals and humans, known as zoonotic diseases.
USDA’s new web portal is also intended to help bridge the gap between different branches of the federal agency, with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Agricultural Marketing Service, Agricultural Research Service and others all playing a part, according to a press release. Other federal agencies such as the CDC and FDA are also involved, USDA said.
In addition to the government push, the animal health industry continues to promote One Health. At a conference last May, Zoetis ($ZTS) called for increased collaborations between veterinarians, physicians and scientists to accelerate drug development targeting diseases that impact animals and humans. And in February, a startup named The One Health Company launched to pair sick cats and dogs with trials of new therapies for diseases that strike both pets and people.
Adding urgency to the push, experts have argued, is the threat of increasingly common outbreaks of vector-borne diseases such as Zika and other zoonotic diseases.
- here’s USDA’s blog post
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