One Health: Veterinary Involvement and Zoonoses in Humans

Introduction: As veterinarians are often first to identify zoonotic disease events in animals, their involvement in One Health should be facilitated and strengthened by support from zoonotic disease surveillance systems and health regulations specific to zoonotic disease surveillance. Objectives: To identify relatable trends between the relationship of the number of active veterinary professionals and the incidence of zoonotic diseases in the developed countries of Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Spain, and the United States of America. Another objective was to illustrate potential barriers current health regulations place on veterinary contributions to One Health surveillance. Methods: Data were gathered using the World Animal Health Information Database (WAHID) operated by the World Organization for Animal Health. Graphical illustrations were created using Microsoft Excel. Correlation and univariate regression analyses were conducted for incidence of zoonotic disease and the veterinarian and animal populations. Three documents were sampled for qualitative analyses addressing international health regulations and programs relating to veterinary medicine. Main Findings: The magnitude of the regression coefficients showed that the number of veterinarians in a country accounts for more variance in zoonotic disease than the number of animals. The two variables accounted for 81% of the variance in zoonotic disease. The search of health regulatory documents for the inclusion of veterinary disease surveillance and prevention terms proved to be inconsistent. Conclusions: Strengthening the base of the One Health movement will be accomplished by standardizing prevention and surveillance education of competent public and private veterinary professionals.