GIDEON and One Health – February 24, 2016

Provided to One Health Initiative website February 22, 2016 by:

*Steven A. Berger, MD

Director of Geographic Medicine

Tel Aviv Medical Center

Tel-Aviv, Israel

As of 2016 humans are subject to 354 generic infectious diseases, distributed in a seemingly haphazard fashion among 231 countries and regions.   307 anti-infective drugs and 70 vaccines have been developed to deal with over 3,000 named pathogens.  Fifty-nine percent of known human infections are associated with an animal reservoir, and awareness of these diseases among health-care workers and the lay public has grown steadily with the appearance of such conditions as Ebola, SARS, Avian Influenza and West Nile virus infection.

Gideon www.GideonOnline.com is an on-line system for diagnosis support and informatics in the field of Human Infectious Diseases.  As the user enters any combination of signs, symptoms, exposure history (country, dates of exposure, food, specific animal contact), a ranked differential diagnosis list appears.  Additional modules present the descriptive epidemiology of each disease, clinical features, diagnostic tests, therapy, etc. A free 15-day trial is available on the website.

A second sub-module in Gideon follows the status of every individual disease – in every country.   As of 2016, the program includes 21,460 country-specific notes which incorporate over 3.9 million words of text.  Data include local vectors, vehicles, populations at rick, all published outbreaks, serological surveys, vaccination uptake, etc.   This sub-module is complemented by 5,000 color figures, 83,500 listed outbreaks and surveys, 31,500 graphs and 462,000 linked references.

Descriptive and numerical data for all relevant diseases also include the status of these conditions among animals in every country.  A copy of one recent note is available at http://www.gideononline.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Influenza-worldwide-note-extract-by-GIDEON.pdf. This is currently the most extensive note in Gideon – and incorporates an impressive amount of data regarding disease among birds and other vertebrates.  As for brucellosis, anthrax and other zoonoses, a chronology of animal outbreaks is integrated into the text.

The third sub-module follows the pharmacology and usage of all antimicrobial agents and vaccines; while the fourth sub-module is designed to identify any human pathogen based on phenotypic tests entered by the user.  The entire Gideon program is updated every 48 hours. In 2016, Gideon released two series of 423 e-books (120,000 single-spaced pages), one each devoted to every country http://www.gideononline.com/ebooks/country/ and every disease http://gideononline.com/ebooks/disease/.  All titles are automatically updated yearly.

Gideon was first released in 1992, and is currently used by World Health Organization (WHO), U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), European Centers for Disease Control, travel clinics, medical schools and Infectious Diseases departments in over 50 countries.  Although scientific content to date has been edited by specialists in human infectious diseases, the staff are strongly committed to the One-Health concept.   We are currently searching for colleagues to expand Gideon with a parallel module in Veterinary Medicine.  The technical work involved would be rather simple, since necessary computer programming is already in place.   The principal task will be creation of a two spreadsheets for diagnosis support (Disease name vs. Symptom occurrence; Disease name vs. Incidence by country) – for each relevant animal species.    In a later stage, text regarding country-specific epidemiology, Veterinary drugs/vaccines, pathogens, etc can be added.

Colleagues interested in collaborating on a One Health version of Gideon should contact Dr. Steve Berger at steve@gideononline.com

 *Dr. Stephen A. Berger was trained in Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, and is currently affiliated with the Tel Aviv Medical Center as Director of Geographic Medicine.  He holds the rank of Associate Professor of Medicine (emeritus) at the University of Tel-Aviv School of Medicine.   Dr. Berger recently published 423 e-books (100,000 pages) which cover the status of Infectious Diseases in every country.  He has also published over 190 professional articles and nine books.

Note: Revised from an important and unique One Health paper posted originally on the One Health Initiative team/website Friday, March 02, 2012.

http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php?query=Gideon.  Also please see http://www.gideononline.com/about/team/.

The National Link Coalition: The Veterinarian’s Role in Breaking the Chain of Family and Community Violence [A One Health issue]

 Provided to One Health Initiative website/team February 18, 2016:

By PHIL ARKOW, Coordinator, National Link Coalition, 37 Hillside Road, Stratford, NJ 08084 Phone: 856-627-5118 arkowpets@snip.net -  www.NationalLinkCoalition.org

If one of the pediatrician’s responsibilities is to prevent child abuse, shouldn’t the veterinarian’s responsibilities include preventing animal abuse?

That’s a One Health question which helped fuel the start of the National Link Coalition in 2008 as a way to improve well-being by transcending professional and species boundaries. Subsequent gains have been impressive and are effecting more comprehensive solutions to health issues affecting humans and other species.

The Coalition came about through impetus from the animal welfare community, in response to growing scientific evidence from the social sciences, criminology and behavioral health fields, about the impact of animal cruelty on interpersonal aggression and other criminal behaviors. Like other One Health proponents, we believe that human and animal interests are inextricably intertwined, and that animal welfare is also a human well-being issue. We promote a collaborative approach between humane and human services to ensure a more comprehensive approach to breaking the cycles of violence and protecting all vulnerable members of society.

The National Link Coalition’s vision is: 

The Link between violence against humans and violence against animals is widely known and understood. We believe that through the recognition and integration of this understanding

into policies and practices nationwide, humans and animals will be measurably safer.

With 99% of Americans considering pets to be significant companions and members of the family, it is apparent that a “siloed” approach in which veterinary medicine, animal welfare, animal control, and animal cruelty prevention are segregated from their human health, social services and law enforcement counterparts is no longer appropriate.

Research continually demonstrates that acts of animal abuse serve as indicators, and frequently as predictors, of family dysfunction, behavioral health problems, and interpersonal violence. We believe that a synergistic approach, on the local, national and global levels, can be more effective in bridging gaps and addressing violence prevention holistically. Our trainings to veterinarians and human health professionals cite the One Health concept as a rationale to recognize the emotional attachments clients and patients may have towards pets and to respond to animal cruelty, child abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse. 

We see animal abuse as also being a public health issue. We focus on what we call “the dark side” of the human-animal bond: the broken bonds that emerge from negative interactions between the species and how these events frequently manifest in interpersonal violence. We also work with “the good side” of the human-animal bond, using animal-assisted therapy to treat the perpetrators and victims of animal abuse.

This One Health approach has resulted in notable changes over the past few years:

��         The American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Animal Hospital Association have amended their policies and the veterinary oath to redefine the veterinarian’s role as including the protection of animal welfare and the prevention animal suffering, and to support the mandatory reporting of animal abuse by practitioners.

��         Seventeen American states now mandate veterinarians to report suspected animal abuse; an additional 18 additional states permit such reporting, all with immunity from civil and criminal liability. An additional two states require veterinarians to report suspected child abuse and one state mandates their reporting of elder abuse. (In 18 states, all citizens are mandated to report suspected child abuse. Trainings to veterinary personnel in these states are now introducing them to this responsibility of which they were previously unaware.)

��         Government funding in Scotland is training veterinarians to recognize and respond to domestic violence: veterinarians were identified with dentists and hairdressers as the three professions most likely to encounter battered women.

��         The New Zealand Veterinary Association has defined veterinary medicine as a unique “three-dimensional profession” charged with protecting animals, people and the environment. NZVA has signed on to a government initiative to prevent family violence.

��         Animal cruelty’s status as a public health issue was confirmed in a 2013 research study that reported that 21.1% of all dog bite fatalities in the U.S. involved dogs that had been victims of abuse.

��         A survey by the Manitoba Veterinary Medical Association in Canada reported that the first place the public goes to report animal abuse is to their veterinarian, rather than to the police or humane society. An Australian study reported that the public already believes veterinarians are mandated to report suspected animal abuse even though they are not so required.

��         Veterinary associations in the U.S., U.K. and New Zealand have published guidances and toolkits to assist veterinarians in the clinical and diagnostic recognition of animal abuse and their response to clients and appropriate authorities.

��         The field of veterinary forensics has emerged as a specialty to provide the clinical evidence needed for successful cruelty prosecutions, similar to forensic procedures long in place in human pathology.

��         In 2016 the FBI is adding four types of animal cruelty – simple/gross neglect, physical abuse and torture, organized abuse (animal fighting), and animal sexual abuse (bestiality) – to its National Incident-Based Reporting System. This is the first time that animal cruelty will have been included on reporting forms used by 18,000 law enforcement agencies and will allow, for the first time, the tracking of animal abuse cases and linking them to other crimes.

The National Link Coalition offers extensive resources, a Bibliography with over 1,100 references, and a speakers’ bureau with trainings targeted to human and veterinary medicine, law enforcement, social work, the criminal justice system, child welfare, domestic violence, adult protective services, and many other disciplines. Our monthly electronic bulletin, The LINK-Letter, is distributed to 2,850 readers in 50 states and 44 countries. Local human-animal coalitions against violence are emerging in communities across the U.S., Europe and Australasia.

For additional information, or to subscribe to the free LINK-Letter, please visit www.NationalLinkCoalition.org or contact coordinator Phil Arkow at arkowpets@snip.net.

First ‘One Health’ Conference held in Israel – February 4, 2016

Israel just had its first One Health conference in a hospital!

The one day event took place on February 4^th, 2016 at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv, and was supported by the Israeli Ministry of Health (MOH) http://www.health.gov.il/english/Pages/HomePage.aspx. 

*Professor Peter Rabinowitz, [MD, MPH], the director of the Center for One Health Research http://deohs.washington.edu/cohr/ and director of Human Health at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health in Seattle, Washington (USA), was the keynote speaker. He talked about the potential benefits of the One Health approach, such as de-siloing of the various players and integration of data, and shared his own experience at Washington State. He also provided some preliminary data from research he is leading in Kenya regarding shared microbiome between humans and animals, showing that the microbiome is more environment-dependent than species-dependent: the microbiome of children was more similar to the microbiome of animals living in the household than to the microbiome of children leaving further away.

The 150 participants of the conference also learned from the other esteemed speakers about the various interdisciplinary collaborations taking place in Israeli academia and governmental offices and how integration of the One Health approach may benefit humans, animals, and the environment. The speakers [physicians and veterinarians] included Dr. Silvia Pessah [MD, MPH], a medical [physician] epidemiologist, in charge of Zoonotic Diseases, Epidemiology Division, Israeli Ministry of Health (MOH); Dr. Eyal Klement [DVM, MSc], veterinarian head of the new veterinary Master’s degree program in public health at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem https://medicine.ekmd.huji.ac.il/schools/publichealth/En/IMPH/Pages/default.aspx; Prof. Mitchell J. Schwaber [MD, MSc], physician director of the National Center for Infection Control (MOH) http://www.health.gov.il/English/MinistryUnits/HealthDivision/InfectionControl/Pages/default.aspx; Dr. Nir Rudoler [DVM, MPH, PhD], a veterinarian at Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, Israel http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Pages/default.aspx; Dr. Yael Paran [MD], physician head of Geographical Medicine at The-Aviv Medical Center http://www.travelhealthassist.com/travel-health-clinic/Tel-Aviv/Tel%20Aviv/802; Prof. Nadav Davidovitch [MD, PhD, MPH], physician chair of the Department of Health System Management, Ben-Gurion University http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/fom/HealthDep/Pages/default.aspx; Prof. Gad Baneth [DVM, PhD], veterinarian director of the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine at the Hebrew University http://ksvm.agri.huji.ac.il/en/; Dr. Michal Perry [DVM], veterinarian poultry epidemiologist at the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture http://www.moag.gov.il/agri/English/; Dr. Roni King [DVM], chief veterinarian, Israel Nature and Parks Authority http://www.parks.org.il/parks/Pages/WhoWeAre.aspx; and Dr. Michel Bellaiche [DVM], veterinarian director of the Kimron Veterinary Institute at the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture http://www.moag.gov.il/agri/English/Ministrys+Units/Veterinary+Services/Kimron+Veterinary+Institute+-+Research+and+Diagnostic+Labs/.

Selected topics included antimicrobial resistance in animals and human, Leishmania, Brucella, the current Zika virus outbreak, Salmonella, bats as zoonotic reservoir and disease surveillance in wildlife.

We would like to thank the speakers from academia and various government agencies for sharing their experience, the participants, and the Tel-Aviv Medical Center for opening its doors to us. We hope that this event marks the beginning of an inter-agency and interdisciplinary collaboration that aims to benefit animals, humans, and the environment, in keeping with the One Health spirit.

Provided by co-organizers:

Zohar Lederman, MD – Dr. Lederman, a physician, is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Sharon Amit, MD, PhD – Dr. Amit is a senior physician in the Infectious Disease Unit at the Tel-Aviv Medical Centre.

*Dr. Rabinowitz, a physician, is a member of the One Health Initiative team Honorary Advisory Board http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/advBoard.php.

Want to publish your “One Health” article(s)?

Consider Four Available Outstanding Journals for doing that http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/journals.php

One Health Inter-Regional European Conference

Date:  22nd – 23rd – 24th of September, 2016

Location Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania

For complete information see: http://www.onehealth.ro/en/ or http://onehealth.ro

          General presentation

          Dates and Venue

          Fees, Deadlines and Papers

          Conference Program

          Scientific committee

          Contact

General presentation

General presentation of the conference

Organising this One Health Inter-Regional European Conference comes as a natural consequence of the momentum that the One Health concept has gathered for the last couple of years. Romania is truly honoured to be part of the One Health movement and firmly believes that due to its half of century experience in comparative medicine and not only, will have a positive impact on the One Health trajectory.

We invite all professions linked to One Health to attend this Conference, because One Health is best defined with the phrase “It’s all connected!”

The conference will be organised under the auspices of the Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) by close collaboration of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences and the One Health New Medical Concept Association in Romania.

The One Health Newsletter, Volume 8, Issue 4 Published – January 26, 2016

SEE: http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/OHNL_Vol8_Issue4.pdf

http://epi.ufl.edu/onehealth/news/one-health-newsletter/ and/or http://media.news.health.ufl.edu/misc/egh/One%20Health%20Newsletter/OHNL_Vol8_Issue4.pdf

“This quarterly newsletter is dedicated to enhancing the integration of animal, human, and environmental health for the benefit of all by demonstrating One Health in practice.”

A product of the University of Florida (Emerging Pathogens Institute)—USA

January 2016 One Health Initiative team message with powerful demonstrable, documented evidence:

—A Practical One Health aphorism—

“One Health implementation will help protect and/or save untold millions of lives in our generation and for those to come.”

See http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/GLOBAL%20One%20Health%20Implementation%20Case%20January%202016.pdf

Book review to appear soon in: Oxford Public Health Magazine, Issue 3, page 6, available at www.oxfordpublichealth.com/magazine - See http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/110116_Oxford_Book_Review.pdf

Global Population Health and Well-Being in the 21st Century: Toward New Paradigms, Policy and Practice (Springer Publishing, New York, 2016)

Author: George R Lueddeke PhD [http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/221215%20GL%20Short%20Bio.pdf]

A must read for public health, clinical, and social care students, teachers, and practitioners alike, including case studies to provide a thorough and up-to-date account of the past, present, and future of global public health. Dr Lueddeke effectively highlights the ingenuity gap between today’s wicked problems and their potential solutions, with a timely emphasis on the concepts of ‘planetary health’ and ‘integrative ecological public health’. Following on from the four “waves” of public health interventions in developed nations, including water/sanitation (first), medical and scientific breakthroughs (second), the welfare state and social security (third), and the current focus on systems thinking, risk factors, and lifestyle (fourth), there is now an emerging need for the “Fifth Wave” interventions that require complex adaptive systems thinking. Dr Lueddeke presents a manifesto for collective public health action through the ‘One Health’ movement, recognising the inter-dependencies in the health of people, other animals and the environment we live in. One of the main aims of the book is to support the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This book describes part of the solution being the development of an effective public health workforce through innovations in education and training, offering a proposal for Centers of One Health Excellence (COHE) worldwide.

Our mission at Oxford Public Health is aligned closely with many of the compelling concepts in this very informative and groundbreaking read.

[Physician], Dr Behrooz Behbod, MB ChB MSc ScD MFPH [http://www.oxfordpublichealth.com/about/]

Founder, Oxford Public Health Ltd

www.oxfordpublichealth.com

Note: Permission to post in advance on One Health Initiative website graciously granted by Dr. Behbod (January 13, 2016)

 “The Ovarian Cancer Symptom Awareness” Organization

www.ovariancancersymptomawareness.org

“Each year, over 20,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and approximately 14,000 women die from the disease. There is an urgent need to share the silent symptoms so early detection and treatment are achieved, and lives are saved.” 

Also see http://www.ovariancancersymptomawareness.org/veterinary-outreach-program/one-health-champions/ and http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/news.php?query=Ovarian+Cancer+Symptom+Awareness+Organization+%28USA%29+Endorses+One+Health+Concept+-+March+3%2C+2015

This is a joint One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono Team and One Health Commission priority issue/cause!

Note: Information about One Health Commission https://www.onehealthcommission.org/

We have been approached by our friends in the International Association of Risk Management in Medicine (IARMM), to consider adding our support to the OneHealth Initiative, excluding any financial supports.

I am pleased to say that the IARMM Executive has happily endorsed this recommendation, and I am now writing to confirm the support of IARMM for your cause.

While by the end of the 20th century, new topics such as clinic gene technology had been added to medicine’s paramount concern with health, it should not be forgotten that health and safety remain integral to human being. In the 21st century, risk and crisis management are widely recognized as one of fundamental aspects of human existence. IARMM assists the world wide exchange of knowledge and skill in this specialist area, and we are pleased to lend support to the work of your enterprise.

With our best regards.

Dr Ryoji Sakai

IARMM President

[http://www.iarmm.org/ChairingBoard.htm]