The One Health summit, being held over two days in Lyon, brings together scientists and decision-makers to find integrated solutions to issues connecting health and the environment.
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“If we want to sustainably improve human health, we must improve the health of our planet,” the Élysée Palace said ahead of the event, which opened on Monday, marking World Health Day.
Since 2017, President Emmanuel Macron has organised One Planet summits to address environmental issues at an international level. This is the first dedicated to health-related topics.
Macron will participate in a meeting on “reforming the global health architecture” with the World Health Organization (WHO), and will address the summit on Tuesday afternoon.
The agenda has three main themes: to improve international cooperation and the sharing of data and research; to combat infectious diseases of animal origin, brought to the fore by the Covid-19 pandemic, and to focus on combating diseases to which the lived environment can contribute, such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems.
The leaders of Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana and Mongolia are in attendance, alongside ministers from some 20 countries who will participate in themed discussions on Tuesday.
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“By bringing together all disciplines and areas of expertise, we have laid the foundations for a truly integrated approach to health, capable of meeting contemporary health challenges,” French Minister of Research, Philippe Baptiste, said in a statement.
Sylvie Briand, chief scientist at the WHO, told RFI that human health is intimately tied to the health of animals, plants and the environment, saying: “We are all connected.”
According to the WHO, three-quarters of infectious diseases that affect humans – including Covid-19, Ebola and Mpox – now come from wild animals.
While this phenomenon has always existed, it has increased in recent years. Briand says this is in part due to changing lifestyles and mobility, with more opportunities for infections to spread in urban contexts.
Viruses such as Covid-19 have also learned to adapt to their human hosts, making contagion all the more likely, she said.
Funding deficit
Another key topic being addressed by the summit is the overuse of antibiotics, in both humans and animals.
According to veterinarian and epidemiologist François Moutou, formerly of the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, the message to doctors should be to “prescribe antibiotics when necessary and not indiscriminately”.
By lowering consumption of antibiotics for farm animals, “we lower the risk of developing new resistant bacteria and this is in the public interest,” he added.
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The primary challenge for the One Health summit is funding, which has decreased around the world in recent years – most notably from the United States, which has withdrawn support for the WHO under President Donald Trump.
The Élysée Palace said: “The budgetary context is very complicated… [but] this summit is not at all inconsistent. Politically, we are here. Financially, we are trying to continue to be here.”
With newswires and partially adapted from the original version in French.
