Dear Colleagues,

Emerging zoonoses are increasing and causing a severe impact in all sectors in a globalized world. The concept that animal health and the environment influence human health has been known for many years. In fact, the initial mission of Veterinary Medicine was to benefit human health through the supply of food, which is in the genesis of current Food Safety. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some physicians, such as Rudolf Virchow and William Osler, advocated the concept of “One Health” through the link between human and animal health. For R. Virchow, when it comes to human and animal health there is no boundary, but a line that crosses and often blurs.

The challenges of global health have led to a more holistic, cooperative, action-oriented approach aimed at achieving logical and practical solutions. The last two decades have presented a worrying picture in the area of outbreaks of infectious diseases. New pathogens emerge and old ones reappear, some with pandemic potential, not forgetting the zoonotic agents that are considered neglected. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on alert. The One Health paradigm recognizes that the health of human beings, animals, and the environment are intrinsically linked, and efforts to combat the issues as emergent zoonoses need to be aligned together. The reasons and factors associated with emerging zoonoses are linked to a complex multifactorial set of circumstances and their occurrence is affected by interactions between the host, the agent, and the environment, known as convergence models. The factors that explain maintenance and emergency are complex. In this triad there are genetic and biological, physical and environmental, ecological, social, economic, and political factors. While globalization brings with it new opportunities for knowledge transfer, cultural, scientific exchange, and rapid humanitarian aid, it has also been implicated as a factor in the increased transfer of pathogens to new areas. Tourism and ecotourism introduce diseases into wildlife and put immunocompromised individuals in situations of biological risk.

Additionally, although companion animals offer countless benefits to our society, there are also health risks that their owners are subject to, as there are a series of viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections that are likely to be transmitted from the animal to the human being. Microbiological adaptation and evolution increases the ability of an infectious agent to cross the species barrier, a complex process that involves multiple factors. In fact, there are several factors associated with the capacity of a new microorganism to cause public health problems, including the capacity and ease of transmission between animals and humans or ability to stand out between people; the possibility of spreading from its place of origin; the severity of the disease; the availability of effective tools to prevent or control outbreaks, and the possibility of treating the associated infection. Other factors associated with emerging zoonoses are habitat destruction due to the development of agriculture, technology and industry, deforestation and reforestation, and climate changes in ecosystems.

There are several barriers to the incorporation of the “One Health” paradigm in public health, ranging from inertia to the difficulty of establishing lines of communication between related disciplines. The future of threats to global health is the adoption of a “One Health” strategy and mentality consisting of the promotion, collaboration, and interconnection between human, animal, and environmental health partners on different fronts, of increasing communication between different sectors, coordinating disease surveillance activities, and of the development of uniform information for the public. A challenge for the future is to respond to emerging zoonoses, which requires increasing recognition of the connection between Human and Veterinary Medicine, as well as the efficiency of limited and finite resources, whether human or financial, but, above all, the awareness that human and veterinary health is part of a global community and that they are inseparable.

In this context, Pathogens will launch a Special Issue devoted to “Emerging Zoonoses: The Bridge Between Human and Animal Diseases in the One Health Paradigm”, with the objective of providing a comprehensive and holistic view of the issues mentioned above. Both original research and review articles are welcomed. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Emerging Zoonoses;
• One Health;
• Epidemiology;
• Diagnostics.

Dr. Ana Cláudia Coelho
Prof. Dr. Luís Cardoso
Guest Editors

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• emerging zoonoses
• One Health
• epidemiology
• diagnostics
• public health