COMSTECH Hosted A Webinar On “One Health” On Dec. 17, In Collaboration With Upsign, UK And Pakistan Academy Of Sciences.
Six speakers from Pakistan, UK and Turkey addressed this webinar and attended by a large audience online. Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary was the chief guest of the event. He appreciated the endeavors of UPSIGN and said that after COVID it has become crucial to use One Health approach to address the diverse challenges faced by the world today in food and health areas.
Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan being the moderator of the webinar, pointed out that we should not only focus on zoonoses but also look at the ecosystem as a big challenge for One Health system. The entire developing world including Pakistan facing an increasing threat from the vector-borne diseases spreading in both farm animals and humans, which are caused, by bacteria and viruses and are transmitted by various vectors, pointed out the experts. The need for taking immediate action to protect our health through protecting our food system is stressed by the speakers of the webinar.
The uncertainty in weather with increasing temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and increased use of pesticides have made a lot of such species resistant. Climate change is providing favorable conditions for the breeding and survival of various vectors and arthropods. This phenomenon of global warming will change the current geographical map of vector-borne diseases and will boost the emergence and reemergence of various diseases to regions, which lack either population immunity or strong public health infrastructure, warned the speakers.
Food safety has become the biggest global challenge. Unsafe food poses global health threats, endangering everyone. Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhea to cancers, informed the experts. It was emphasized by the speakers that the large variety of diverse factors that impact production and distribution of safe food supplies, the availability of natural resources, healthy ecosystems, market globalization, climate change, political instability, and poverty all underscore the need to address these issues using a One Health approach.