Can vultures help prevent pandemics?, Pg12

Key Highlights:

• India's vulture population, crucial for preventing pathogen spread, has declined by over 95% since the 1990s due to diclofenac use.
• Vultures are part of the Central Asian Flyway (CAF), linking ecosystems and disease risks across more than 30 countries.
• A post-2025 national strategy for vulture conservation could rest on five pillars, including nationwide satellite telemetry and a Decision Support System (DSS).
• Integrating vulture conservation into One Health strategies can reduce future pandemic risks and align with the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office Strategic Roadmap for Health Security (2023–27).

Detailed Insights:

• Vultures play a vital role in preventing the spread of pathogens like anthrax, Clostridium botulinum, and rabies by efficiently removing carcasses.
• The decline in vulture populations represents a public health challenge, linking biodiversity decline to the risk of future pandemics.
• The CAF is a biodiversity and public health corridor, and aligning conservation with pandemic prevention along this flyway offers an opportunity to address risks at scale.
• Conservation programs for vultures are underfunded and fragmented, with limited integration into national One Health strategies.
• A Decision Support System (DSS) integrating wildlife, livestock, and human health data can provide real-time risk analysis, aligned with International Health Regulations.
• Community stewardship, empowering women, youth, and local groups, is crucial as frontline actors in surveillance and awareness.
• Protecting vultures through telemetry, safe veterinary practices, and infrastructure mitigation is cost-effective compared to the costs of outbreak response.
• India can showcase how biodiversity conservation doubles as pandemic prevention by scaling telemetry, operationalizing a DSS, and embedding vulture protection into national and regional One Health strategies.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Diclofenac: A veterinary drug toxic to vultures, causing a drastic decline in their populations.
• Central Asian Flyway (CAF): A migratory route for birds, connecting breeding grounds in Central Asia to wintering areas across South Asia.
• One Health: An integrated, unifying approach that aims to balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.