INTERVIEW ▶▶▶
Are there any other differences in the approach between humans and livestock? “Look at the diagnosis of diseases. As veterinary virologists, we are very well trained to find out what causes a disease. Is it a virus or a bacterium and which one exactly? This is essential for starting and improving treatment and prevention. If you go to the doctor with a cold or diarrhoea, you are usually advised to wait it out and to come back if it does not get better. Then you get antibiotics. It is not even determined which germs are involved, a bacterium, a virus or something else. And they do not prescribe specific antibiotics either. “That is no longer done. We have good and even revolutionary diagnostic technologies to really help vets and farmers. That goes one step further than a PCR test. For example, we have a new technology within our spin-off PathoSense, which is already being used in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. It makes it possible to see in one test which virus or bacterium it is and which antibiotic we should use, against which the bacterium is not resistant. Furthermore, the knowledge of viral and bacterial diseases is better than in human medicine. We have the advan- tage of testing directly on the relevant animal species; in humans, it is necessary to work with mice or other animals with an adapted virus. That is a big difference. In addition, there is extensive ex- perience with vaccines to control infectious diseases and even to eliminate viruses in a targeted manner.”
What else needs to be done? “Much more money is needed for research. Covid-19 is a corona- virus. There are many more coronaviruses, which are even more aggressive, such as the feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) virus that kills up to 5% of cats. We need to look at that, so we can find a vaccine for those coronaviruses in time. You would hate to think that a virus that is just as deadly as African Swine Fever in pigs, and for which you have no cure, will strike humans. It would lead to an unimaginable disaster. With African Swine Fever, you can
Working together on One Health
Prof Hans Nauwynck argues that human and veterinary virolo- gy should cooperate more. “We have to build bridges. This is starting to take off, luckily. There used to be a big barrier be- tween virologists. There was a sense of supremacy among the human virologists. That difference is now largely gone. We find each other more and more. The human sector should take a good look at what we have already achieved in the animal sector. The ideal is to work together on a “One Health” ap- proach. We know that wildlife is a reservoir of viruses. We must learn from each other. We also must be realistic. In animal hus- bandry we accept a mortality rate of about 1%. Of course, that is not acceptable in humans.”
20 ▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 37, No. 10, 2021
see how bad it will turn out if you underfund research. We have known for years that the virus was coming. Money has become available much too late to combat it. Currently, we are trying to empty the ocean with a thimble. African horse fever is also knocking on the door.”
Surely there is a realisation now that money must be put on the table to prevent such disasters. “Let’s hope so. Otherwise, we have learned nothing. Until now, it has always been very difficult to get money for veterinary viruses. Hopefully this will change because it is really urgent. You should not wait, because waiting is a very bad attitude. I also do not understand why the health insurance world is not investing more money in better diagnostics. They currently do not reimburse the diagnosis of most viral and bacterial diseases. It pays off twice if you can intervene faster and more specifically, as we do in animal husbandry. Letting infectious diseases drag on causes many hospital admissions with expensive costs. “In intensive livestock farming, you see that continuous efforts are made to increase biosecurity to a very high level. What mat- ters is that we wake up now and start working hard together as human and veterinary virologists. And let’s also realise that as long as there will be humans and animals, there will be zoonoses (animal- to-human) and reverse zoonoses (human-to-animal) at risk of escalating into a pandemic. There is insufficient or incorrect discussion about reverse zoonoses. Animals cannot write articles.”
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