National One Health Mission
News: The Advent of a Holistic Approach to ‘One Health’.
One Health:
- One Health is an integrated and unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems.
Why India Needs One Health Approach:
- One health approach holds significant implications for India due to its diverse wildlife, large livestock population, and dense human population.
- Inter-Compartmental Disease Spread:
- India faces heightened risks of diseases spreading between wildlife, livestock, and humans.
- Recent events like the Covid-19 pandemic and outbreaks of diseases like Lumpy Skin Disease in cattle and Avian Influenza highlight the importance of addressing diseases across multiple sectors.
Holistic Approach:
- One Health recognizes the need to address diseases not only from a human health perspective (zoonosis) but also considers the implications for livestock and wildlife.
- It also presents opportunities to leverage the complementary strengths of each sector to devise integrated, robust, and agile response systems.
National One Health Mission:
- Definition: It is India’s multi-Ministerial and multi-sectoral approach for integrated disease control and pandemic preparedness, by bringing human, animal, plant and environmental sectors together.
- Participants: It is a comprehensive initiative endorsed by Prime Minister’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) in July 2022.
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- It involves collaboration between 13 Government Departments which will coordinate priority activities across sectors like Science and Technology, Biotechnology, Health, and Animal Husbandry.
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- Implementation strategy: The establishment of the National Institute for One Health in Nagpur coordinates national and international efforts in health management.
- Aim: National One Health Mission aims to develop strategies for disease surveillance, research, and response to human and animal diseases.
- Key Focus Areas: Tackling diseases that affect humans such as COVID-19, foot and mouth disease, and lumpy skin disease.
- Goals:
