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The health of humans and animals is closely related - we must make the most of this link

Thousands of healthy pigs are due to be slaughtered in Belgium to halt an eradicate of swine fever - AFP
Thousands of healthy pigs are due to be slaughtered in Belgium to halt an eradicate of swine fever - AFP

News that the deadly African swine fever has reached Western Europe has put a renewed focus on the importance of animal health research.

Scientists, like those at Pirbright University, are working to deliver a vaccine that can prevent the disease which only affects cattle, and we hope it will spur greater public investment in animal medicine.

And it’s not only animals that could benefit from such work. We have seen in the past how research that initially set out to tackle diseases in animals has helped, for example, to prevent cancer in people.

As a professional with more than 20 years’ experience in veterinary medicine, I see this interconnectivity as a tremendous opportunity for both medical and veterinary research to maximise their impact.

We have seen some of our greatest advances take place when veterinary and human medicine has converged, and this is the way medicine should be practised.

Doctors should more often seek the advice of vets and animal experts, and vice versa because the health of animals and people are intrinsically linked. Six out of 10 infectious diseases in people are zoonotic, meaning they can be transmitted between humans and animals.

Beyond infections, the biological similarities between people and animals mean we also share many medical conditions such as heart disease and cancer, and we can reasonably assume that treatments that are safe for animals are likely to be safe for people as well.

The booming market for pet health care has led to an increase in pet cancer research, which has subsequently had a positive outcome for human patients. For example, the Food and Drug Administration in the US approved a trial for experimental cancer therapy in children based on the success of a trial in dogs with the same cancer. It’s a two-for-one result. 

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken a similar approach with vaccines, where successful trials for a dog vaccine can go into human clinical trials soon after.

Another example is the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine that is now widely given to teenage girls to protect them from cervical cancer. This emerged from work originally intended to tackle bovine papilloma virus (BPV) in cows.

Through searching for a vaccine that would protect cows from BPV, which can cause tumours, researchers at the Beatson Institute in Glasgow discovered a successful formula  involving a molecule similar to the most common HPV. This paved the way for the vaccine that has since been found to halve the number of new cases of cervical cancer.

Elsewhere, Dr William Campbell and Professor Satoshi Ōmura were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 2015 through adapting a drug originally used to control parasitic worms and insects in animals to treat  River Blindness  in people.

The treatment, Ivermectin, is a wonder-drug that has protected billions of livestock and pets worldwide from parasites since the 1980s. Now, some 200 million people a year also take it to treat River Blindness, a disease transmitted by a worm often found near rivers in sub-Sahara Africa, South Asia and Central America.

So where could the next breakthrough come from?

It could be that research into a tick-borne cattle disease known as East Coast Fever offers new insights into malaria control for people.

There have been signs that cattle can be protected from East Coast Fever through exposure to a milder form of the parasite, a principle that could hold potential for protecting humans against malaria.

Or it could be a new multi-species vaccine  against Rift Valley Fever, a disease transmitted by at least 10 species of mosquito to livestock and people, mainly in Africa. Vaccinating both people and animals with the same product will make disease protection cheaper and disease elimination faster.

The intersection between animal and human health is called zoobiquity and it reflects the principle that the health of animals and humans are inter-related.

The intersection between human and animal medicine is called zoobiquity, and combines the knowledge of evolutionary biology with veterinary science and human medicine. But it’s also known as One Health because it reflects the principle that the health of animals and humans and the environment are all inter-related.

Untold opportunities for progress in health lie ahead when public, private and international institutions open up not only funding but possibilities to work together across disciplines. In 2007, the American Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association passed a resolution to work closer together for the benefit of humans and animal medicine.

With more commitments to support joint research, who knows where the next breakthrough could take us.

Rick Clayton, technical director, Health for Animals

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