Esteban OrtizâPrado, MarĂa Paz Cadena, Jorge Vasconez-Gonzalez, Juan S. Izquierdo-Condoy
Latin America and the Caribbean are a global hotspot for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, yet regional One Health preparedness remains uneven and incompletely operationalized. This narrative Mini Review synthesizes evidence published mainly between 2015 and 2026 on One Health preparedness for emerging infectious diseases in the region, emphasizing how environmental disruption and climate change shape zoonotic and vector-borne spillover risk. Available regional surveys suggest broad professional familiarity with the One Health concept but limited operational implementation, with environmental health frequently identified as the least-integrated domain. We argue that spillover riskâand the failure to detect and contain spillover once it occursâshould be understood as a system-level outcome shaped by ecological disruption, socioeconomic vulnerability, surveillance capacity, and governance, rather than as an isolated biological event: deforestation, agricultural and extractive expansionâincluding illegal mining and loggingâunplanned urbanization, and climate variability generate new humanâanimalâvector interfaces, while fragmented governance, uneven and poorly decentralized laboratory capacity, and limited reservoir and environmental surveillance leave these interfaces unmonitored. Environmental and climatic drivers are robustly linked to spillover, although the pathways are disease-specific rather than universal, and socioeconomic vulnerability concentrates the resulting burden in Indigenous, rural, and marginalized populations. We identify priority gaps in integrated surveillance, decentralized diagnostics, genomic capacity, reservoir ecology, governance, financing, and equity, and propose an agenda for anticipatory, climate-informed, and context-sensitive preparedness.
Open access
Zoonotic diseases and public health
Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research
Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
Vivek Kumar, Navya Vyas, Myron Anthony Godinho, S. Elstin Anbu Raj · 5 authors
Abstract Background Vector-borne diseases (VBD) pose significant threats to global public health. Despite the adoption of Integrated Vector Management (IVM) in India to address this issue, its implementation encounters several obstacles that undermine its effectiveness. This review systematically examines implementation challenges and highlights key areas for improving VBD reduction in India. Methods We conducted a systematic review and meta-synthesis following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines. Studies conducted during 2016â2025 were included in this review, as the first IVM guidelines were introduced in India in 2016. PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science databases were included in the search. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used as a lens to synthesise the evidence. Methodological quality of the included studies was assessed using an appraisal tool based on the study design. Results Across the 55 studies included, 35 implementation challenges affecting IVM were identified. The most frequently reported barriers included low preventive practices and risk perception (29.1%, n = 16), insecticide resistance (25.5%, n = 14), deficits in community engagement (21.8%, n = 12), and gaps in physical and information technology infrastructure (21.8%, n = 12). System-level challenges related to health workforce capacity, inter-sectoral coordination, financing, and governance were common. Individual-level barriers included knowledge gaps, misconceptions, and limited motivation among communities, as well as training and competency gaps among implementers. Process-related challenges were prominent and included coverage and fidelity gaps, weak engagement, issues with surveillance data quality, and inadequate planning and monitoring. Conclusion IVM implementation in India reflects interconnected multi-level barriers, particularly within the outer, process and inner domains. Strengthening decentralized, real-time surveillance system with a formal feedback mechanism, alongside institutionalizing community co-design approaches, represents a key approach through theory-informed, context-sensitive implementation strategies to improve implementation fidelity and program effectiveness and accelerate towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3. Registration This review protocol was developed and registered in the Open Science Framework (OSF). Registration https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/JTCWD
INTRODUCTION: Somalia, the 44th largest country in the world by land area, struggles with a heavy burden of infectious diseases. Since 1991, populations have lacked essential health services, exacerbated by recurring infectious-disease outbreaks. Recurrent outbreaks of measles, cholera, and polio have devastated public health, generating significant morbidity and mortality. Despite improvements through new graduates, these issues remain unresolved. This study examines the impact of climate change on infectious-disease outbreaks in Somalia focusing on cholera, measles, and polio-to fill a gap in the literature by linking climate variability with outbreak dynamics and identifying weaknesses in Somalia's health system. The findings will inform targeted public-health strategies. METHOD: Following PRISMA guidelines, we undertook a narrative review of English-language literature (1990 - March 2025). Searches in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar combined terms for infectious-disease outbreaks, climate change and Somalia/Horn of Africa. Of 202 records identified, 74 met inclusion criteria. Two reviewers independently screened, extracted data and applied six-step inductive coding in NVivo 12, synthesizing findings into thematic domains. RESULTS: Four interlinked themes emerged. (1) Fragile health system: < 0.4 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10 000 population, poorly equipped facilities and patchy surveillance. (2) Control measures: routine immunization completeness â20%; limited oral-cholera-vaccine and WASH coverage sustain transmission. (3) Political instability and conflict: insecurity, decentralized coordination and â„ 2.6 million IDPs hamper rapid response. (4) Impact of climate change: drought-induced water scarcity and flood-related latrine breaches create year-round face-oral exposure, while climate shocks divert resources and swell susceptibility pools. CONCLUSION: Outbreak control in Somalia now hinges on integrating climate adaptation with health-system strengthening. Climate-proofed WASH infrastructure, mobile vaccination and surveillance linked to hydro-meteorological alerts, a National Outbreak Operations Centre, and ring-fenced financing are urgent priorities. Without such measures each extreme-weather event will erase hard-won gains; with them, Somalia can break the climate-outbreak feedback loop.
Abstract This article describes the trajectory of the city of Rio de Janeiro in facing public health emergencies between 2021 and 2024, based on three axes of action proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO): preparedness, surveillance, and response. Innovation in timely data analysis from non-conventional information sources has enabled an early detection of events, promoting reorientation in health surveillance practices. The construction of a strong institutional identity, as well as the coordination of response actions in Emergency Operations Centers, contributed to the consolidation of a culture of rapid response and networking. The integration of primary health care (PHC) and surveillance networks guaranteed a continuity of care and coordinated risk management, highlighting the importance of a decentralized health system that seeks intersectorality in responding to emergencies. The advances observed in combating the COVID-19 and dengue epidemics during this period in the city were driven by adequate investments in structure and human resources, emphasizing the importance of continuous financing and strategic planning aimed at this model of care.
Reviewed by: Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control by Alan L. Olsmstead and Paul W. Rhode Thaddeus Sunseri Alan L. Olsmstead and Paul W. Rhode. Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. x + 465 pp. Ill. $49.95 (978-0-674-72877-6). Arresting Contagion details tells how a well-financed federal veterinary infrastructure can push back, and in many cases eradicate, animal pathogens from within a countryâs borders by applying police powers and scientific breakthroughs. Its focus is the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), a U.S. federal agency within the Department of Agriculture, created in 1884 and lasting until 1953, when it was reorganized as the Agricultural Research Service. The authors argue that under American circumstances of a decentralized state structure, federal intervention in the form of an agency with substantial research and enforcement capabilities was absolutely necessary to push back myriad livestock diseases, many of which threatened human health in the form of unhygienic meat or milk or by directly transferring pathogens. The BAI faced opposition from ranchers and farmers, railroads, meatpackers, livestock brokers, and state governments that resented and resisted draconian federal intervention, which often included quarantining states or regions, and culling whole herds of cattle or hogs to eliminate contagions. Emerging at a time when germ theory was poorly understood and denied by many, and in light of multiple livestock diseases, including contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia (CBPP), hog cholera, bovine tuberculosis, Texas fever, trichinosis, and foot-and-mouth disease, the BAI was âa landmark in the history of [End Page 821] federal regulationâ (p. 11), preceding by a few years the Interstate Commerce Commission that is usually considered the hallmark of big government. Forcefully opposed by proponents of statesâ rights, the BAI was born in crisis, when CBPP, a highly infectious bacterial disease, erupted in the Midwest and threatened the open-range herds of the far West and the meatpacking industry. CBPP was known to have wiped out the herds of South Africa and Australia, and, besides threatening the American food supply, led Europeans to restrict livestock imports, impairing a major sector of the American export economy. Despite poor funding and limited initial powers to intervene in and between states, by 1892 the BAI succeeded in eradicating CBPP from the United States through quarantines, culling, trade restrictions, veterinary inspections, and partial compensation to encourage reporting. The BAI negotiated complex issues of cooperation with the states and private interests. The CBPP success led to greater funding for the BAI by the turn of the century, at a time when its scientists made major breakthroughs in the understanding of disease etiology, most notably with Texas fever, which had impaired the free flow of cattle from the enzootic South. Many former BAI opponents in private industry, the states, and Congress became converts to its efficacy in combating livestock diseases for the public good. Although the authors offer international comparisons of how livestock disease control policies could take different trajectories in different countries, and make clear that many BAI veterinarians were trained in Europe, this is primarily an American story for American conditions, particularly the political challenge of navigating intricate federalâstateâprivate sector tensions. The authors seem unaware of the German precedent in eradicating rinderpest from their Continental domains by 1881, a few years before the BAIâs founding, using similar âstamping outâ policies. Although not primarily concerned with livestock disease etiologies, Arresting Contagion is an immensely informative and valuable investigation of the pivotal role of government in acting in the public good, arguing against those scholars and politicians who see government bureaucracy as motivated primarily by its own self-perpetuation. From a cost-benefit analysis, the elimination or curbing of livestock diseases, despite enormous expense and often harsh intervention backed by police power, was repaid many times over by saving millions of lives, opening up markets, increasing animal productivity, and making scientific breakthroughs that could be applied to new circumstances. At a time when the world is threatened continuously by zoonoses like Ebola virus, mad cow disease, SARS, MERS, and avian influenza; when the globalization of the food supply increases the risk of...