USAHA News
United States Animal Health Association
Contact:  Larry Mark - (703) 451-3954 - ldmark@erols.com


For immediate release:

"ONE HEALTH" CONCEPT DISCUSSED AT WILDLIFE DISEASE COMMITTEE

	HERSHEY, Pa., Nov. 9, 2005 - Hundreds of scientists in the field of wildlife health have 
been dismayed for years that government agencies and multi-government organizations have 
avoided responsibility for pursuing the simplest of concepts:  The health of people, animals and 
the environment in which we all live are inextricably linked.

      This was the thrust of a presentation by Dr. William B. Karesh of the Wildlife 
Conservation Society’s Field Veterinary Program at the meeting here this week of the U.S. 
Animal Health Association (USAHA) Committee on Wildlife Diseases.

	Dr. Karesh pointed out that more than half of the 1,700 infectious diseases known to 
modern medicine are shared between humans and animals.  Unfortunately, many of these 
diseases fall between the cracks of interest or responsibility of modern health care authorities.  

	Ironically, Dr. Karesh said, the fields of human health, public health, livestock health and 
wildlife health are suffering from too much specialization and a lack of willingness to engage 
across disciplines.  He pointed out that it is much more appropriate to view the combined and 
inter-related health of all of these different entities as "one health."

	Dr. David Stallknecht of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study provided 
the committee with a report on highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus (H5N1) infection 
and mortality in wild birds in Asia that was first recognized in 2002/2003 and has continued 
through 2005.  It appears that this virus may have been transported across Asia via migrating 
wild birds.  More recently, it has occurred in Eastern Europe.  This has raised numerous 
questions on the possible role of wild birds in the maintenance or transmission of this virus.  The 
epidemiology of the HPAI H5N1 virus in wild bird populations remains unclear. 

	Dr. Stallknecht said that the current H5N1 HPAI outbreaks in domestic poultry in 
Southeast Asia, along with the zoonotic potential of this virus and continued reports of wild and 
zoo bird mortality associated with it, certainly deserve attention.  He pointed out the need to 
better understand the epidemiology of avian influenza in wild bird populations and to identify 
mechanisms for bother interspecies transmission and the emergence of HAPI viruses that could 
potentially impact the health of domestic animals, humans and wildlife.

	The committee also heard reports on West Nile virus, bovine tuberculosis in Michigan 
deer, brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Area, and chronic wasting disease (CWD).

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