Amid rising zoonotic diseases like Covid-19 and Monkeypox globally as well as in India, the Government is in the process of setting up a first-of-its-kind institute in Gujarat’s Junagadh on the lines of the premier AIIMS-like institute for the management of wildlife and tackle emerging and re-emerging threatening infections in the country.
The proposed National Referral Centre, for which around 50 acres of land is currently being acquired on the periphery of Junagarh, will be equipped with the highly sophisticated investigation and surveillance facilities for research and to pick up diseases both in animals and humans.
The need for such an institute has been felt in view of the recent emergence and re-emergence of the threatening zoonotic diseases which calls for safe handling of animals by humans.
“The aim is to launch prompt containment action before an outbreak becomes an epidemic in the country. This requires close collaboration between various sectors especially veterinarians and health and wildlife personnel to put in place effective preventive practices among animal breeders and rearers,” an official from the Union Environment Ministry told The Pioneer.
The Centre would take care of all such wildlife-related health issues from across the country for which similar labs will be set up at zonal levels.
“We are in the process of identifying an agency to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the proposed Centre. Most likely the DPR will be ready by the end of this year. Subsequently, we will work for the fund availability for the project,” he said.
The plan is to strengthen our ability to prevent known infectious diseases and to recognize and control rare, highly dangerous, and newly emerging threats, through a strengthened, adaptable, and multi-purpose public health system under our ‘One Health’ approach, explained the official.
The Central Zoo Authority (CZA), an autonomous body under the Ministry supervising the zoos across the country, will be the nodal agency for the Centre.
Currently, the vet institutes in the country are dealing with livestock-related diseases while the Centre at Junagarh will look into wildlife zoonotic diseases—ie passing from wildlife to humans.
The Centre will work in collaboration with national and international institutes in the sector.
According to a report by a team of scientists from the International Institute of Health Management Research, New Delhi, of 1407 human pathogens, 816 are zoonotic, i.e., capable of being transmitted naturally between animals and humans.
These include 538 bacteria and rickettsia, 317 fungi, 208 viruses, 287 helminths, and 57 protozoa. The study also highlighted that as many as 177 (13 per cent) of the total pathogens were emerging or reemerging, and of these 130 (75 per cent) were classified as zoonoses.
“Emerging infections usually prove more threatening because humans have little information about their origin and many of their epidemiological features remain unknown. The economic impact is also not too well delineated, though rough estimates put it at billions of dollars,” said scientists Sanjiv Kumar, Sumant Swain, Preetha G S, BS Singh, and Divya Aggarwal in the report published in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine.
The report cites, an International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) study, stating that 13 zoonoses are the cause of 2.4 billion cases of human disease and 2.2 million deaths per year. The highest zoonotic diseases burden with widespread diseases burden is in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and India, as per the report.
A systematic review of zoonotic diseases in India concluded that new zoonotic diseases such as cutaneous leishmaniasis, Japanese Encephalitis, leptospirosis, and scrub typhus are spreading to a much wider area at an alarming rate.
The re-emergence of neglected zoonotic diseases such as KFD can be problematic due to the unavailability of strategies and policies to fight against them, as per the scientists.
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