Infectious Disease: a One Health Perspective

Infectious Diseases: a One Health Approach

How do zoonotic diseases emerge? What are the links between food security, biodiversity and global health? Should badgers be culled to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis? In recent years, One Health has become established as an interdisciplinary framework to tackle these complex issues.

This module aims to introduce Part II Pathology students to the One Health framework in the context of infectious disease epidemiology and control. The module consists of lectures delivered by faculty members of the Department of Veterinary Medicine and guest lecturers from around the UK. Using a broad range of case studies, the lectures showcase the implementation of One Health approaches in different contexts.

This module caters for all NST, MedSt and VetST students who want to understand the wider context of disease biology and epidemiology beyond core biomedical disciplines. 

Foundation lectures and case studies cover the following overarching topics:

1. Historical background against which the One Health framework emerged and evolved.

2. Spillover pathways for infectious diseases of zoonotic origins, investigated through the lenses of different disciplines.

3. Ecological concepts and tools supporting the study of disease epidemiology in animal populations, at the human-animal interface and in ecosystems.

4. The role of key economic sectors (agriculture, food industry, national and international regulators) in the spread, surveillance and control of pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes.

5. The use of genomics and molecular epidemiology to infer pathogen transmission across landscapes and species barriers.

6. The role of climate change and land use change in current and future spread of infectious diseases.

The module includes examples from diverse pathogens (viruses, bacteria, prions, parasites, and transmissible cancer) affecting or carried by wild animals, domestic animals, and humans. No detailed mechanistic knowledge of the within-host biology, pathology or immunology of infection is required, although students should get to understand how these disciplines can contribute to a One Health approach alongside epidemiology, ecology, economics and other related disciplines. The module also includes student-led sessions discussing topical issues or case studies.

While this module is designed to complement the Epidemiology module in Michaelmas term, with a shared list of projects, the two modules can be studied independently.

• Recent dissertation titles:

  • Can conservation efforts help prevent future pandemics?

  • Can pathogen genomics predict host jumps?

  • Is avian influenza posing an existential threat to free-range farming?

  • How worried should we be about antibiotic resistant bacteria in the food chain?

  • Should mosquitoes be eradicated?

• Recent project titles:

  • The impact of MHC genotype on transmissible cancer pathology in Tasmanian Devils

  • Microecology of Streptococcus suis

  • The global distribution of canine transmissible venereal tumour

  • Genomic evidence of multidrug resistance in pig microbiota from organic and conventional farms

  • Antibody dynamics of multiple filoviruses in Ghanaian straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum)