One Health

New challenges after the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The strategy based on the integration of, until recently, compartmentalized knowledge such as human, animal, and environmental health, to address significant planetary health problems has experienced a notable boost associated with the formalization of the One Health approach.

The need to analyze global health problems and challenges under this perspective emerged as a response to health challenges and impacts associated with global change. The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically exposed this situation. Its impact highlighted the limitations in the reaction of the international health system and raised doubts about the effectiveness of its instruments.

This article describes the impact of the pandemic on different aspects of global health and opens some lines of reflection about the new challenges facing the One Health approach today.

The One Health approach must provide a framework for analysis but also for action that can effectively result in the promotion of health in a world challenged by global change and still profoundly unequal.