One Health

One Health refers to the interconnectedness of the health of humans, animals, and the environment. It recognises that coordination across sectors is needed for effective prevention, detection, and management of infectious disease threats. Although the concept of One Health is not new, it has gained increased prominence following the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting national and international institutions to adopt One Health policies aimed at preventing disease spillover^1–4. At Nature Communications, we have launched a Collection and call for papers in recognition of the need for better scientific evidence to support One Health policy ambitions.

In this Comment, the authors describe recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in cat shelters in Seoul, South Korea. They discuss potential routes of transmission and describe implications for surveillance of spillover infections in animals in non-agricultural settings.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government established a committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks. In this Comment, the authors describe the One Health approach taken by the committee, and outline its aims, composition, and initial actions.

WHO guidelines for classification of malaria elimination in a country require that the risk of human infection from zoonotic, as well as nonzoonotic, malaria parasites is negligible. In this Comment, the authors discuss the implications of this policy for countries, such as Malaysia, with no recent reported nonzoonotic cases but ongoing zoonotic transmission.

Household water, sanitation, and handwashing (WASH) interventions can reduce diarrhoea-related morbidity in young children. Here, the authors report findings from a pre-specified secondary analysis of a cluster-randomised trial assessing how WASH impacts vary by socioeconomic position and season.

Seasonal influenza levels were unusually low when non-pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19 were in place. Here, the authors analyse serological and epidemiological evidence for the hypothesis that such lulls in influenza transmission lead to reduced immunity and therefore larger epidemics in subsequent seasons.

Live poultry markets in rural areas can be hotspots for transmission of pathogens, but the effects of markets on selection of viral virulence are not known. This study demonstrates through mathematical modelling that high turnover rate and persistence of viral particles can select for highly virulent pathogens in markets.

Monitoring antimicrobial resistance in food animals is challenging due to limited surveillance systems. Here, the authors combine data from point prevalence surveys in lower- and middle-income settings to map resistance to seven antimicrobials and predict which are likely to exceed key resistance thresholds.

West Nile Virus is emerging as an important pathogen in Europe, likely driven by recent climate and land-use changes. Here, the authors estimate the extent of the climate change-driven impact by modelling the change in West Nile Virus ecological suitability across the continent in the absence of climate change.

The geographic distribution of dengue has been expanding in recent decades, and Vietnam is one of the most severely affected countries. In this study, the authors use Bayesian hierarchical modelling to investigate the socio-environmental and climatic drivers of dengue incidence in Vietnam and how they vary across the country.

COVID-19 has impacted health systems unequally and widespread SARS-CoV-2 testing for community surveillance has been limited globally. This work in Malawi highlights how river and wastewater can be used to detect emerging SARS-CoV-2 waves, identify variants of concern, and provide an early warning system.

Identification of areas with risk factors for spillover of viruses from animals to humans could assist with early detection of emerging infectious diseases. In this study, the authors characterise potential risks for spillover of SARS-like viruses from bats to humans and identify geographical regions in which multiple risk factors cluster together.

The diversity and spillover potential of pangolin-associated microbes are not fully understood. Here, the authors describe the distribution and spectrum of reported pangolin microbes by integrating data from multiple sources and assess their potential to emerge as human pathogens.

Staphylococcus pseudintermedius has a wide host-range in domesticated and wild animals, yet it has also been isolated as an opportunistic pathogen in human wounds. In this work, the authors genotypically analyse S. pseudintermedius isolates from veterinary diagnostic laboratories and medical care centres, alongside household surfaces and inhabitants.

Control of rabies in Africa through mass vaccination of dogs may be compromised by cross-border transmission. Here, the authors use mathematical modelling and a benefit-cost analysis to demonstrate that coordinating rabies control measures across borders could lead to the elimination of dog rabies in Africa.

West Nile virus is an animal pathogen that has spread rapidly in Europe in recent years, causing several human deaths. This study investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of the virus circulation between Africa (its place of origin) and Europe.

White-tailed deer are an important reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 in the USA and continued monitoring of the virus in deer populations is needed. In this genomic epidemiology study from Ohio, the authors show that the virus has been introduced multiple times to deer from humans, and that it has evolved faster in deer.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A/H5N1 has recently emerged in the Americas and has been implicated in mass die-off events of pelicans and sea lions. Here, the authors report sampling and characterisation of HPAI A/H5N1 genomes from five marine mammal and seabird species in Peru.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been documented to transmit between humans and animals, providing opportunities for viral reservoirs. Here, the authors show SARS-CoV-2 lineages in free-ranging white-tailed deer across the United States, long after the lineages had declined in human populations.

Here, the authors conduct a multidisciplinary study of human-great ape viral sharing in Cameroon and a European zoo, finding that environmental co-use enables more enteric virome sharing, virome convergence, and adenovirus and enterovirus sharing between Cameroonian humans and apes.

Plasmodium knowlesi is a zoonotic malaria parasite that can infect humans, but whether human-mosquito-human transmission occurs is not known. Here, the authors use data from Malaysia and show, through mathematical modelling, that sustained non-zoonotic transmission is unlikely to be occurring in this setting.

Viral diversity and abundance in bats are incompletely understood. Here, analyzing individual bat viromes, the authors observe a high frequency of co-infection and spillover among the animals and identify viruses with the potential to infect humans or livestock.

Potential recombination of African swine fever virus genotypes is not well understood. Here, Zhao et al. report naturally occurring ASFVs carrying mosaic genomes of genotype I and II and show that the recombinant virus is lethal in pigs and evades the immunity induced by genotype II live vaccine.

Certain bats species have previously been identified as ancestral sources of coronaviruses that infect humans but there is limited data on the genomic diversity or zoonotic potential of viruses infecting bats in the UK. Here, the authors use deep sequencing and in vitro assays to characterise coronaviruses recovered from 48 bat faecal samples.

Monitoring the diversity of viruses infecting animals is important for assessing zoonotic risk. Here, the authors use metatranscriptomics to characterise the viromes of small mammals, pangolins, and zoo animals in China to identify potentially zoonotic viruses.

Escherichia albertii is an emerging gastrointestinal pathogen that causes disease in humans and animals, notably birds. In this genomic epidemiology study, the authors investigate characteristics of isolates sampled from humans and birds in Great Britain and find that they tend to cluster separately.