Commonly and according to the WHO, health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, which does not consist solely of the absence of disease or infirmity”. From this perspective, health is seen as “human health” and through the prism of diseases affecting human beings. This vision of health, although already broad, can then, in many respects, seem incomplete.
What regarding the interfaces between the health of human beings, that of animals and that of the environment? Of the impact of the preservation of biodiversity on the living? The impact of climate change on health? Today, it is undeniable that human health is intrinsically linked to animal and plant health as well as to environmental health.
The emergence of HIV, Ebola, Zika or even the H1N1 flu, as well as the consequences of air or water pollution, have already shown us that we cannot think of human health like an independent bubble with no connection to the rest of the world. The Covid-19 pandemic, by its unprecedented scale, gives a central place to the “One Health” approach, which invites us to erase the boundaries that still exist between human medicine, veterinary medicine, plant biology and ecology.
Animal origin
Today, we do not have scientific evidence explaining precisely the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic. But we know that SARS-CoV-2, like 70% of emerging infectious diseases, has an animal origin. Genetic sequencing data from the virus reveal that the closest known viral precursors of SARS-CoV-2 are coronaviruses circulating in populations of bats of the genus Rhinolophus (horse horseshoe bats), species endemic to parts of mainland China and Laos. .
The…
