Health ministry steps up fight against zoonotic diseases

New Delhi: With another variant of covid marking its presence across India, the Union health ministry has sought to emphasize that it's been increasing its focus on zoonotic diseases–infections typically spread from animals to people.

The ministry, in a report, said it had stepped up its efforts especially in the wake of several zoonotic disease outbreaks in recent years, including the Nipah and Zika viruses. 

The ministry had noted last year that 75% of new infectious diseases that have emerged over past three decades have been zoonotic.

Common zoonotic diseases in India include rabies, anthrax, brucellosis, plague, bovine tuberculosis, leptospirosis and salmonellosis.

“We are planning to have augmented zoonotic diseases surveillance at the human-wildlife interface," an official at the National Centre for Disease Control said. “There is a need for better understanding of specific drivers. Understanding the mechanisms of zoonotic diseases is crucial to preparing for future outbreaks.”

The health ministry had earlier said that limited knowledge and skill in identifying zoonotic diseases, coupled with limited diagnostic facilities at all levels, has resulted in such diseases being neglected. In 2022 the government launched the National One Health Mission, a cross-ministerial effort to review areas of focus.

The health ministry is already implementing various national programmes through NCDC, including the National One Health Programs for Prevention and Control of Zoonoses, National Rabies Control Programs, Program for Prevention and Control of Leptospirosis, Snake Bite Prevention and Control, National Programme on AMR Containment, and the National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCHH).

Apart from zoonotic diseases, NCDC had also raised the alarm on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which happens when bacteria, viruses and fungi develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them.

According to the World Health Organisation, zoonotic pathogens may be bacterial, viral or parasitic, and can spread to humans through direct contact or through food, water or the environment.