Infection from animals to human: should not be underestimated

WHO said that, in recent 20 years, there have been 40 new diseases discovered, take over 12 percent out of all human diseases. Which was to notice is 75 percent of new diseases coming from animals. Those diseases caused 15mil dead. Just three diseases: SARS, E.coli and Mad Cow Disease (BSE) caused loss of over 70bil USD.

* Dangerous diseases

One of newest researches of WHO shows that ¾ human disease originates in animals. For instance, pneumonia originates in civets, malaria in culexs, smallpox in camels, plague in rats and rodents; brain disease in cows, rabiss in wild animals or pets… especially AIDS in HIV virus from apes. They cause millions of dead every year.

 
Treatment for dengue spread by dengue culex

Although plenty of old diseases used to be controlled by chemotherapy and antibiotics, now they outbreak again and resist against drugs. From 2000 to 2005, there were 50mil people all over the world getting diseases from mosquito and cattle. There were 78 thousand dead: rabiss caused 30 thousand dead; dengue spread to 50 million people and took away 25 thousand infectious people’s lives; Japanese encephalitis killed 15 thousand people...

At the conference, experts said that Vietnam had some emerging diseases which were very likely to be spread from animals to human and very dangerous, such as: rabiss, malaria, dengue, plague, streptococcal infection from pigs… especially A/H5N1 influenza occurred in 2003, so far there have been 119 infected people including 59 dead all 40 provinces and over the country. With the outbreak of new and old diseases, according to Mr. Le Van Tuan – representative of WHO in Vietnam, there are 10 percent of Vietnamese will be affected by these diseases, which results in a loss of GDP up to 10 percent.

* In need of Coordination mechanism

Mr. Tran Van Quang – Deputy of Department of Animal Health (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) stated Dong Nai is the province that has the biggest amount of poultry and cattle of the country. Till August 2012, the province has 9mil cattle and 1.2mil poultry. In recent time, among poultry and cattle of Dong Nai Province there are diseases such as: Streptococcus, blue-ear disease in pigs, Foot and mouth disease, hog cholera and avian influenza… The important thing is that the varieties of the virus reducing the effectiveness of the vaccine inoculation.

 

Dr. Tran Minh Hoa - Head of Disease Surveillance and Vaccine and Biological Dept. (Provincial Preventive Health Center) said, for rabiss only, Dong Nai is ranked second among Southern provinces of its rabiss infection and dead because of rabiss. In recent five years, the province has 64.235 people who have to take vaccine for rabiss when getting a wild animal bite. There are 5 cases turning wild and dead. Dengue from culex cases are also increasing, from the beginning of the year it is recorded over 4 thousand people get infected and 5 people died…

The spreading of diseases from infectious animals to human is not a new issue. However, in recent years, animals are spreading to human more and more virus, bacteria and parasites which cause plenty of dangerous and fatal diseases. According to WHO, Vietnam currently has 15 dangerous diseases infected from animals to human. Therefore, there should be a coordination mechanism between veterinary and healthcare service to prevent infection. Because according to Dr. Huynh Cao Hai – Deputy Director of Department of Health, if only healthcare service took responsible for the matter, there would be difficulties in solving all the problems.

Also according to WHO, it is the lack of cooperation mechanism to improve information exchange and infection management between veterinary and healthcare service that creates big obstacles to prevent infectious diseases spreading from animals to human in Vietnam. Thus, a coordination mechanism to prevent infection between veterinary and healthcare service is an urgent matter in order to prevent those disease continuing to spread from animals to human.

Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are discussing to ratify a circular to instruct cooperate prevention and disease transmission from animals to human. Cooperating activities are: sharing information of disease supervising and potential elements; cooperating to investigate disease sites; quickly responding to the prevention and disease transmission from animals to human; building and performing common programs, using media to prevent disease transmission from animals to human; training officials, doing science research and international combination; building a list of diseases transmitted from animals to human that should be given priority to prevention; establishing outbreak investigation team and coordinating to respond diseases in time.

Source: Dong Nai Press