Bovine tuberculosis

 CAB International 2018. Bovine Tuberculosis
(eds M. Chambers, S. Gordon, F. Olea-Popelka, P. Barrow) 31

* Email: [email protected]

This chapter is focused on the economics of

bovine tuberculosis (TB), taking into consider-

ation the burden of this disease for livestock and

also for human health, with a strong emphasis

on One Health (OH) as a control approach. The

current chapter starts with an overview of One

Health, followed by a review of the economics of

bovine TB as an OH issue, through a summary

of One Health and its added value for bovine TB

and human TB control.

3.1 One Health

OH can be defined as the added value of closer

cooperation between human and animal health

in terms of better health of humans and ani-

mals, financial savings and improved ecosystem

services (Zinsstag et al., 2015). OH is part of the

broader consideration of ecology and health. It

contributes to improving health by engaging dif-

ferent institutions and disciplines in a closer way

by improved communication, closer collabora-

tion and better information sharing based on the

recognition that human and animal health are

mutually dependent.

Obstacles of the broad acceptance of the

benefits gained from an OH approach are mostly

economic. In fact, it is critical for the establish-

ment of an OH approach to demonstrate that

public and private stakeholders may save money

from a closer cooperation (Zinsstag et al., 2012).

Veterinary attention should be drawn to

many sectors related directly or indirectly to

animal health, such as international trade and

travel, global climate changes, habitat destruc-

tion, overpopulation, ecotourism and food safety,

and all those sectors should be aware of the

positive impact of the collaboration with other

disciplines. However, the establishment of an

OH initiative and setup of its principles should

be performed at the academic level; in addition

to the creation of specialized Masters’ in OH

(Osburn et al., 2009), the academic training of

OH should be adapted to different countries and

contexts in order to be most efficient. Still, the

OH approach should be embraced also by several

institutions and organizations outside academia,

such as industrial firms, especially those that

will benefit from addressing the challenges posed

by bovine TB using an OH approach (e.g. the

milk and meat industries).

Public health schools remain among the

biggest institutions that deploy considerable

efforts to educate global health experts and

prepare them to confront the global burden

diseases. One of the strengths of public health

schools is their multidisciplinary orientation

and their aspiration to develop, test and validate

new approaches, technologies and systems in

order to reach the global health needs, especially

3 Economics of Bovine Tuberculosis:

A One Health Issue

Hind Yahyaoui Azami1,2,3 and Jakob Zinsstag2,3,*

(^1) Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II, Rabat, Morocco; (^2) Swiss Tropical and
Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland;^3 University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland