Zoonotic pathogens can spread to humans through contact with domestic, farm or wild vertebrate animals (Horefti, 2023). However, invertebrates and other intermediate hosts can intervene in the complex network of emergence and transmission of zoonotic diseases(Eidson, 2008; Konda et al., 2020a; Rüegg et al., 2018; Uretsky et al., 2020; WHO, 2022). Some zoonotic diseases of animal origin are severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola and, recently, SARS-CoV-2. As shown by Jones et al. (2008, p. 990), most EIDs are zoonoses (60.3% of EIDs), and more than 70% originate from wild animal trafficking (Bezerra-Santos et al., 2021; Cardoso et al., 2021; Nijman, 2021; Ortiz Millán, 2020; Ortiz-Millán, 2022; Roe et al., 2020), increasingly close contact with farm and wild animals, intensive agriculture, unsustainable global food systems, and crimes against biodiversity (Boratto & Gibbs, 2017; Gladkova, 2023; Sollund, 2021; Wong, 2023). The objective of this article is twofold. On the one hand, I want to join the recent call to action to accelerate the operationalization and implementation of the OH approach, made by the Quadripartite organizations working on One Health(FAO; UNEP; WHO; WOAH, 2022). On the other hand, it can be argued that the tools and methods of multispecies justice (MSJ) and zoonoethics can aid in resolving conflicts between competing moral claims that arise in favor of both human and non-human life. This approach can assist in addressing the challenges faced by the OH framework.
The first call can be stated in a negative way: (1) We cannot expect zoonotic diseases to decrease unless we urgently take prudent and precautionary measures to halt the systematic destruction of wildlife and put a stop to the ongoing ecocide of the planet. (Baquedano, 2019; Gibbs & Boratto, 2017; Gray, 1996; Schwegler, 2017; White, 2019) As various scholars have corroborated, there is a very close relationship between defaunation, environmental crimes, ethnocide and the mechanisms of emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases. (Crook et al., 2018; Rodríguez Goyes, 2021; Uhm & Zaitch, 2021). The second call to reduce the risks of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) and zoonoses in the Anthropocene Age is the following (2): We need to enhance interepistemic and transdisciplinary communication to develop a comprehensive and nonanthropocentric perspective on EIDs and zoonoses. (Filho et al., 2021; M. Guilherme, 2021; Guilherme, 2023; R’boul, 2022; Salas, 2021; Salas & Sandoval, 2020)
Zoonoses should not be understood as single-cause events reduced to the world of veterinary medicine but as systemic ecosocial phenomena of increasing complexity that are produced by the confluence of environmental, sociocultural and economic factors linked to the dynamics of anthropogenic climate change, the flows of global capitalism, the intensification of agriculture, the concentration of waste and garbage from animal farms, the pollution of the seas, and the increase in global trade and travel, among other factors (Bastidas et al., 2022; Bernstein & Dutkiewicz, 2021; Bloom et al., 2017; Douphrate, 2021; Hubálek & Rudolf, 2010; Keatts et al., 2021; Rodríguez, 2021; Stephens et al., 2021; Valera & Rodriguez, 2021). Figure 1 illustrates the network of factors associated with the emergence and spread of zoonoses.
Zoonotic diseases can emerge and spread rapidly among the population, surpassing the capacities of the institutions in charge of epidemiological surveillance due to the flows of global capitalism, accelerated population growth, intensification of travel and international trade, among other factors. (Antoine-Moussiaux et al., 2019; Field, 2009; Layton et al., 2017; Rahman et al., 2020; Rüegg et al., 2018; Schrecker, 2020; Sell, Susan & Williams, 2020; Shaheen, 2022; Weitzel et al., 2020; Zinsstag et al., 2021) Other anthropogenic drivers that increase the risks of zoonoses are pollution of the seas, overfishing, excessive use of antibiotics in the global food production chain and the advance of “green” extractivism. (Allouche, 2015; Andrade, 2022; Bruna, 2022; Chagnon et al., 2022; Nygren et al., 2022).
Every year millions of animals are intensively farmed on industrial animal farms that use excessive doses of antimicrobials in different phases of livestock production. In fact, the call to “Curb the silent pandemic of AMR” is one of the main red traffic lights that we find in the “One Health Joint Plan of Action, 2022–2026”. (FAO; UNEP; WHO; WOAH, 2022) The ethical and prudential use of problematic bactericidal and antimicrobial preparations has ceased to be a question for experts and is becoming one of the great ethical imperatives for the construction of viable and sustainable health systems. (Littmann, 2014; B. Rollin, 2001; WHO, 2015) The widespread and prolonged use of antimicrobials in the different stages of intensive animal agriculture represents one of the main drivers for the development of resistant bacterial populations. The ethical use of antimicrobials has strong implications for both human ethics and animal ethics, although this difference is becoming increasingly blurred, and it is noted that the prudent management of zoonoses requires transdisciplinary approaches and interdisciplinary discussions (Anthony & De Paula Vieira, 2022; Collignon, Peter & McEwen, 2019; Jasovský et al., 2016; Lammie & Hughes, 2016; McEwen, Scott & Collignon, 2018; Millanao et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2019).
Another factor that increases the risk of zoonotic diseases is the unsustainable transport of livestock and poultry, since these animals are often transported in unsanitary conditions over long distances, which deepens both animal abuse and the risks of spreading zoonotic diseases. (Belay et al., 2017; Marchese & Hovorka, 2022; Sánchez et al., 2021) In other words, the crisis of the global food system, which has caused a decrease in the intake of healthy foods with high nutritional value, overlaps with other crises, such as the loss of biodiversity, the water crisis, the energy crisis, deficiencies in water treatment plants, unhealthiness problems and the transportation crisis (Broom, 2019; Steenson & Buttriss, 2020; Stoll-Kleemann & O’Riordan, 2015)
In the current conditions of a highly interdependent and globalized world in which we live, zoonoses must be understood as transboundary events that unequally affect different communities and groups. As the WHO indicates, “Agricultural workers in areas with high use of antibiotics for farm animals may be at increased risk of contracting pathogens resistant to current antimicrobial drugs.”(WHO, 2020) Currently, the increase in human settlements in wild areas, megafires, rising temperatures, droughts and the destruction of large ecosystems such as the forests of southern Chile and the Amazon, which play key roles in global carbon capture, are triggering the risks of spreading zoonotic diseases(Bonilla-Aldana et al., 2020; Perez-Quezada et al., 2021, 2023; Winck et al., 2022)
Table 1 shows a timeline that demonstrates the increase in EIDs from 1918 to the present. One of the most recent cases of re-emerging zoonotic diseases is monkeypox, which was first detected in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A global outbreak of monkeypox occurred in 2022-2023, particularly affecting the Americas, Europe and Africa. To date, the natural reservoir of the virus is unknown, but there are several vulnerable small mammals, such as squirrels and monkeys (WHO, 2023)