One health approach in Nepal: Scope, opportunities and challenges

Abstract

One Health (OH) is a collaborative effort to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment. The concept of OH is still in its infancy in Nepal but is increasingly growing. The Government of Nepal (GoN) has taken some initiatives to tackle burgeoning problems such as antimicrobial resistance, highly pathogenic avian influenza and rabies using OH approach but there are several challenges at the level of implementation. Few non-governmental organizations support GoN to promote an OH approach. The major bottlenecks in implementing OH in Nepal include poor organizational structure to support OH, absence of a legal framework to implement OH, poor coordination among different governmental agencies, insufficient technical expertise, poor data sharing mechanism across sectors, limited budget and poor understanding at political level. We encourage GoN to address these gaps and prioritize the health problems where OH approach would give the best outcome. Institutional and legal frameworks need to be created to effectively implement an OH approach in Nepal. Increasing awareness among policy makers including political leadership and increasing regular government budget for OH activities would be helpful to promote OH in Nepal.

Review of rabies in Nepal

“…At present, the leading departments of human and animal health sectors, Department of Health Services (DHS) and Department of Livestock Services (DLS) have their sectoral priorities where OH approach has been overlooked or not properly implemented. Establishment of a separate OH organizational framework involving the representatives from the aforementioned departments can create a common platform for rabies surveillance, resource utilization, and development and implementation of effective rabies control programs [ 80 ]. Despite the initiation of various OH approaches in the past including development of tissue culture rabies vaccine for human use in 2010 by NVPL under the DLS [ 81 ]; World Bank funded ‘zoonoses control project’ (2012–2014) [ 82 ]; and establishment of OH hubs in the 75 districts of Nepal under One Health Network South Asia implemented by Massey University (2013) [ 83 ]; the outcomes did not match the expectations.…”

Livestock and Poultry Production in Nepal and Current Status of Vaccine Development

“…The burden of zoonotic diseases is massive in low-income countries, like Nepal, where people are highly reliant on livestock production and have limited access to healthcare facilities [21]. The lack of sufficient awareness of Nepali farmers about zoonoses and disease prevention measures highlights the existing risk of pathogen spillover from livestock and poultry species to humans [22,23]. In fact, several bacterial (e.g., brucellosis and salmonellosis), viral (e.g., rabies and avian influenza), and parasitic (e.g., cysticercosis and hydatidosis) zoonoses are endemic in Nepal and are imposing a significant public health burden (Table 4) [23,24].…”

“…The lack of sufficient awareness of Nepali farmers about zoonoses and disease prevention measures highlights the existing risk of pathogen spillover from livestock and poultry species to humans [22,23]. In fact, several bacterial (e.g., brucellosis and salmonellosis), viral (e.g., rabies and avian influenza), and parasitic (e.g., cysticercosis and hydatidosis) zoonoses are endemic in Nepal and are imposing a significant public health burden (Table 4) [23,24]. Rabies, caused by an RNA virus of the genus Lyssavirus from the family Rhabdoviridae, is an endemic viral zoonoses in Nepal that results in deaths of around 100 animals and 10-100 humans each year [25].…”

Veterinary medicine as the core of the one health approach for Nepal's preparedness to pandemics like COVID-19

“…ç zflGtM zflGtM zflGtM .. is the primordial form of what the west later explained as an One Health Concept, Kaphle (2016). Nepal has a relative advantage of being under developed and at par exposure with modern technology adaptations, Acharya et al, 2019. The space and flexibility to fall back to nature and be able to survive on minimum, the buffering protection of forested lands counts for some of the advantages.…”