There has never been a greater need for multidisciplinary research to address today's complex health and environmental concerns. The One Health (OH) approach ensures that human, animal, and environmental health concerns are addressed in an integrated and holistic manner, providing a more comprehensive awareness of the issue and potential solutions that would be attainable with segmented approaches.
The One Health strategy is best demonstrated by the global health issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The method is described as a cooperative effort among several professions to produce solutions for issues relating to the health of people, animals, and the environment. AMR is connected to each of these three elements because antimicrobials are being used carelessly and excessively in many areas (agriculture, cattle raising, and human medicine). Under the influence of antimicrobial selection, bacteria acquire resistance genes and mobile genetic elements that can transfer to other bacteria of the same or different genus.
When bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, they gain a stronger ability to proliferate in animals, people, and the natural world. The misuse of antibiotics, inadequate infection control, agricultural waste, environmental contaminants, and the movement of people and animals carrying resistant bacteria are all factors in the emergence of resistance.
As AMR is a complex issue, it requires a multidisciplinary approach to frame it within the One Health approach. It is especially concerning to see how multidrug-resistant bacteria are spreading around the world and causing diseases that cannot be treated with current antimicrobials.
The World Health Organization (WHO) listed 32 antimicrobials under hospital development in 2019, with only six termed innovative. Antimicrobial resistance is taking a toll on global health systems. Antimicrobial-resistant microorganism infections are currently challenging to treat since antimicrobials are becoming increasingly ineffective against these infections, resulting in greater mortality rates. To manage infections caused by major pathogens outlined by WHO, new antimicrobials are required.
However, future antimicrobials will suffer the same fate as the current antimicrobials and become useless unless the current technique of using antimicrobials is changed. Antimicrobials are significant in animal production for a variety of reasons (therapeutic, prophylactic, and development boosters).
Animals, including farm animals, farmed fish in aquaculture systems, bees, and pets, use antibiotics for a variety of purposes.
Animals are thought to utilise more antimicrobials than people do on a yearly basis. Animals should be treated with the majority of antibiotic classes used to treat humans, including quinolones and broad-spectrum beta-lactams, which are essential for treating humans.
Tetracycline, triazoles, and streptomycin are a few antimicrobials that are used to treat both people and animals as well as plants. AMR can easily spread between ecosystems, populations, and populations; resistant zoonotic bacteria can be found in soil and can then infect plants, vegetables, and fruits. The transmission of fungi that are resistant to antibiotics from the environment to people has been related to antimicrobial use in agriculture.
Supporting a "One Health" strategy is crucial to combating AMR (human, animal, plant, and environmental health).
This necessitates accelerating global development, inventing for the future, partnering for more effective action, investing in long-term solutions, and enhancing global governance and accountability. Most types of antibiotics are accessible for use in humans and animals. Antimicrobial resistance can be reduced by using antimicrobials only for treatment, rarely for prophylaxis, and never as growth promoters.
Success will necessitate tight and effective control of the types and quantities of antimicrobials used in medical practice, as well as monitoring and regulating the spread of resistant bacteria into the environment.
