Zoonotic diseases: who gets sick, and why? Explorations from Africa

Dzingirai, Vupenyu; Bett, Bernard K.; Bukachi, Sally; Lawson, Elaine; Mangwanya, Lindiwe; Scoones, Ian; Waldman, Linda; Wilkinson, Annie; Leach, Melissa; Winnebah, Tom

doi:10.1080/09581596.2016.1187260

Cited by 37 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The task is not free of challenges, especially for emerging diseases [18]. This is further complicated by abiotic factors such as land use change [4] and social difference demonstrating how risks are not generalisable [19]. Here, we start proposing some measures for the risk of zoonotic spillover and their link with drivers of transmission.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Unified Framework for the Infection Dynamics of Zoonotic Spillover and Spread

et al. 2016

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A considerable amount of disease is transmitted from animals to humans and many of these zoonoses are neglected tropical diseases. As outbreaks of SARS, avian influenza and Ebola have demonstrated, however, zoonotic diseases are serious threats to global public health and are not just problems confined to remote regions. There are two fundamental, and poorly studied, stages of zoonotic disease emergence: ‘spillover’, i.e. transmission of pathogens from animals to humans, and ‘stuttering transmission’, i.e. when limited human-to-human infections occur, leading to self-limiting chains of transmission. We developed a transparent, theoretical framework, based on a generalization of Poisson processes with memory of past human infections, that unifies these stages. Once we have quantified pathogen dynamics in the reservoir, with some knowledge of the mechanism of contact, the approach provides a tool to estimate the likelihood of spillover events. Comparisons with independent agent-based models demonstrates the ability of the framework to correctly estimate the relative contributions of human-to-human vs animal transmission. As an illustrative example, we applied our model to Lassa fever, a rodent-borne, viral haemorrhagic disease common in West Africa, for which data on human outbreaks were available. The approach developed here is general and applicable to a range of zoonoses. This kind of methodology is of crucial importance for the scientific, medical and public health communities working at the interface between animal and human diseases to assess the risk associated with the disease and to plan intervention and appropriate control measures. The Lassa case study revealed important knowledge gaps, and opportunities, arising from limited knowledge of the temporal patterns in reporting, abundance of and infection prevalence in, the host reservoir.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Unified Framework for the Infection Dynamics of Zoonotic Spillover and Spread

et al. 2016

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“…One Health approaches have been criticised for being driven by generalisations that may not fit real-life settings and placing an excessive emphasis on biomedical components (Dzingirai et al, 2017;Green, 2012). Preventive chemotherapy and MDA for tackling helminthic infections is an example of such a general approach that tends to be viewed as effective anywhere, at any time.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life by the river: neglected worm infection in Western Siberia and pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all control approach

Zvonareva

Odermatt

Golovach

et al. 2017

Critical Public Health

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The One Health movement aims to provide integrated responses to problems that emerge at the intersections of human, animal, and ecological health. However, it risks derailment due to over-reliance on top-down global responses and generalisations that often fail to fit real-world settings. In this article, we examine the case of parasitic Opisthorchis felineus infection in Western Siberia and argue that understanding the local social dynamics of disease exposure and transmission, and how people live their lives in interactions with other species is crucial for making One Health work in practice. This qualitative study was conducted in preparation for developing an opisthorchiasis control programme and involved 20 in-depth interviews, participant observation, and multiple unstructured interviews in the village of Melnikovo. We explored the social dynamics of O. felineus transmission and designed a participatory model of these dynamics. This model attests to the specificity of transmission dynamics in Western Siberia and demonstrates the importance of understanding this public health issue as embedded in social networks and animated by a variety of locally-specific linkages between ways of life, food and health cultures, health-care systems, economies, and landscapes. Our work highlights that such participatory approaches have to be an integral part of One Health interventions if these interventions are to be effective and legitimate.

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“…Focus groups allowed gender, occupation and age specific discussions to take place. These discussions revealed otherwise hidden cultural dimensions of disease risk, capturing sources of knowledge not conventionally considered in disease risk models which enriched analyses with local insights and perspectives based on local knowledges (7). Focus groups were also by Bardosh et al in the previously mentioned rapid study of the transmission dynamics of T. solinum in a remote village in PDR Lao (6).…”

Section: Working With Groupsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Public health problems (including those involving other species) are increasingly derived from interactions between human behavior and social and technical systems. Veterinary public health researchers, epidemiologists and policymakers can benefit from integrating insights from qualitative research into their understanding of animal health, not least to improve policies and interventions for the management of the incidence and risks of disease in animals and the provision of related services (6,7). Disciplines such as sociology, geography and anthropology have made significant contribution to our capacity to understand public health problems, and they solutions that are both novel and contextually-appropriate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%