The One Health framework endorsed by the quadripartite (World Health Organization, World Organisation for Animal Health, Food and Agriculture Organization, and United Nations Environment Program) is defined, in part, as an "integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems," and it explicitly refers to the health of plants as part of the whole interrelated system to consider. Although the ultimate issue is the planet's habitability for humans, the definition introduces a shift in perspective-human health is no longer the sole priority but must be balanced and optimized alongside the health of animals, plants, and ecosystems. This raises some practical and ethical questions. Drawing on case studies and the framework of the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) on the values of nature, this study explores the implications of a global approach to health, with the ethical and practical questions that it raises.

Le cadre One Health, approuvé conjointement par l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé, l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé animale, l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture, et le Programme des Nations unies pour l’environnement, est défini comme une « approche intégrée et unificatrice qui vise à équilibrer et à optimiser de manière durable la santé des personnes, des animaux et des écosystèmes », et fait explicitement référence à la santé des plantes comme faisant partie intégrante du système d’interdépendances à prendre en considération. Bien que la question ultime soit celle de l’habitabilité de la planète pour les humains, cette définition introduit un changement de perspective : la santé humaine n’est plus la seule priorité, mais doit être équilibrée et optimisée conjointement à la santé des animaux, des plantes et des écosystèmes. S’appuyant sur des études de cas et sur le rapport de l’IPBES (Plateforme intergouvernementale scientifique et politique sur la biodiversité et les services écosystémiques) sur les valeurs de la nature, cet article explore les implications d’une approche globale de la santé, ainsi que les questions éthiques et pratiques qu’elle soulève.

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a potentially severe zoonotic viral disease causing fever and haemorrhagic manifestations in humans. As the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) has been detected in ticks in Spain and antibodies against the virus in ruminant sera in Corsica, it was necessary to know more about the situation in France. In 2022-2023, CCHFV was detected in 155 ticks collected from horses and cattle in southern France.

The world is coping with the health, societal, and economic consequences of more than 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging diseases caused by new pathogens, or re-emerging infectious diseases, appear regularly and their frequency is increasing.1,2 Several research papers3–5 have shown that the cost of preventing an infectious disease is much lower than the cost of managing one, especially at a global level. A change in health-care framework is needed to improve pandemic prevention, which will require a global understanding of disease emergence and an integrated One Health approach.

The French Committee for Monitoring and Anticipating Health Risks (COVARS) has been strengthening the One Health approach through its interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral composition, the emerging risks it addresses (Covid-19, Mpox, vector-borne diseases, avian influenza…), its holistic approach to risks and its position at the science-decision interface.

En mars 2021, Montpellier Université d’excellence (MUSE) et Agropolis International ont réuni des décideurs, acteurs opérationnels, représentants d’organisations internationales et scientifiques pour partager leurs expériences des approches intégrées en santé dans le cadre du concept One Health. Ces échanges intersectoriels fructueux ont croisé les points de vue et ont pointé les obstacles et les enjeux de la mise en œuvre concrète de ces approches. Les participants ont abouti à des propositions pour rendre plus efficace cette mise en œuvre et faire face aux menaces sanitaires émergentes et aux futures pandémies : coconstruire des projets intégrés avec tous les acteurs concernés (citoyens, décideurs politiques, chercheurs, services locaux) ; développer des méthodes d’évaluation de leurs impacts ; former les acteurs ; institutionnaliser et coordonner les actions du niveau local au niveau mondial.

The French Departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique are particularly sensitive to the problem of invasive species. This problem is the responsibility of the Services and other organizations in charge of animal and plant health. These agencies have established concerted information activities and regional co-operation aimed at preventing the introduction and the control of invasive species, which could have important economic impacts on agricultural production and the ecosystems of these Departments. We report the strategy of regional co-operation and progress pertaining to some potential invasive species or species undergoing mutation, and the prospects for controlling them in the event of their introduction.

As of mid February, 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has killed approximately 2 million people worldwide and caused profound economic damage, with a global growth reduction of 4·4% in 2020.1International Monetary FundWorld Economic Outlook, October 2020: a long and difficult ascent.https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2020/09/30/world-economic-outlook-october-2020Date: October, 2020Date accessed: January 5, 2021Google Scholar The ultimate consequences of this crisis are difficult to predict but, from sanitary, economic, sociological, and ecological perspectives, the toll is already substantial. Nevertheless, this threat is not new. Concerns over a global pandemic have arisen many times before, so most countries already had emergency preparedness plans in place. However, the limitations of these have been exposed by the current coronavirus pandemic.2de Garine-Wichatitsky M Binot A Morand S et al.Will the COVID-19 crisis trigger a One Health coming-of-age?.Lancet Planet Health. 2020; 4: e377-e378Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (24) Google Scholar The reasons for these inadequacies are many, and point towards one misconception: contrary to current approaches, prevention strategies should be implemented before the disease emerges within human populations. During the last several decades, pathogen screening has been developed to anticipate the next pandemic. Although isolating new wildlife-borne pathogens is still important, it is not enough to prevent them from emerging. It is time to take a step forward—namely, by jointly deploying academic research, intersectoral collaboration in the field, and the engagement of operational actors on the front lines of outbreaks—to envision prevention strategies that lead to the reduction of risks of emergence.3Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem ServicesWorkshop report on biodiversity and pandemics of the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services.https://zenodo.org/record/4311798#.YBgRpdj7SUkDate: Oct 29, 2020Date accessed: January 5, 2021Google Scholar Such a scheme is at the heart of the PREventing ZOonotic Disease Emergence (PREZODE) initiative, a French brainchild that has attracted the interest of the Tripartite Alliance (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, World Organisation for Animal Health, and WHO), as well as the UN Environment Programme, the World Bank, the European Commission, and partner countries. Announced at the One Planet Summit on Jan 11, 2021, the PREZODE initiative was prepared through a series of online workshops that convened nearly 400 researchers and public health authorities from 50 countries on all five continents. We expect that PREZODE will be done under the guidance of the planned One Health high-level expert council.4Paris Peace ForumStrengthening the multilateral health architecture: launch of the "One Health" high-level expert council.https://parispeaceforum.org/events/strengthening-the-multilateral-health-architecture-launch-of-the-one-health-high-level-expert-council/Date: Nov 12, 2020Date accessed: January 5, 2021Google Scholar PREZODE aims to support inter­national organisations and countries across the globe, particularly low-income countries, to prevent the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases. This initiative is an attempt to initiate a framework shift to envision innovative prevention strategies, on the basis of five pillars: (1) zoonotic risk assessment, (2) zoonotic risk reduction, (3) early detection and socioeconomic evaluation, (4) a global surveillance system of zoonotic risks, and (5) ensuring stakeholder commitment and capacity building to strengthen One Health networks and policies. This international initiative will debut in 2021, with the co-design of a scientific and strategic agenda to be shared by researchers and stakeholders before the first implementation plan launches in 2022. On behalf of the initiative, we would like to invite the scientific and medical communities to join this effort to co-construct an ambitious plan in the different regions of the world, leveraging existing projects, programmes, centres, and hubs. The PREZODE initiative promotes an international coordination strategy to tackle emerging risks (WHO, World Organisation for Animal Health, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, and UN Environment Programme) by deliberately putting a strong focus on prevention and co-construction to ensure sustainable solutions, in addition to preparedness. We declare no competing interests.

Ehrlichia ruminantium is an obligatory intracellular bacterium that causes heartwater, a fatal disease in ruminants. Due to its intracellular nature, E. ruminantium requires a set of specific virulence factors, such as the type IV secretion system (T4SS), and outer membrane proteins (Map proteins) in order to avoid and subvert the host's immune response. Several studies have been conducted to understand the regulation of the T4SS or outer membrane proteins, in Ehrlichia, but no integrated approach has been used to understand the regulation of Ehrlichia pathogenicity determinants in response to environmental cues. Iron is known to be a key nutrient for bacterial growth both in the environment and within hosts. In this study, we experimentally demonstrated the regulation of virB, map1, and tr1 genes by the newly identified master regulator ErxR (for Ehrlichia ruminantium expression regulator). We also analyzed the effect of iron depletion on the expression of erxR gene, tr1 transcription factor, T4SS and map1 genes clusters in E. ruminantium. We show that exposure of E. ruminantium to iron starvation induces erxR and subsequently tr1, virB, and map1 genes. Our results reveal tight co-regulation of T4SS and map1 genes via the ErxR regulatory protein at the transcriptional level, and, for the first time link map genes to the virulence function sensu stricto, thereby advancing our understanding of Ehrlichia's infection process. These results suggest that Ehrlichia is able to sense changes in iron concentrations in the environment and to regulate the expression of virulence factors accordingly.

The obligate intracellular pathogenic bacterium, Ehrlichia ruminantium, is the causal agent of heartwater, a fatal disease in ruminants transmitted by Amblyomma ticks. So far, three strains have been attenuated by successive passages in mammalian cells. The attenuated strains have improved capacity for growth in vitro, whereas they induced limited clinical signs in vivo and conferred strong protection against homologous challenge. However, the mechanisms of pathogenesis and attenuation remain unknown. In order to improve knowledge of E. ruminantium pathogenesis, we performed a comparative transcriptomic analysis of two distant strains of E. ruminantium, Gardel and Senegal, and their corresponding attenuated strains. Overall, our results showed an upregulation of gene expression encoding for the metabolism pathway in the attenuated strains compared to the virulent strains, which can probably be associated with higher in vitro replicative activity and a better fitness to the host cells. We also observed a significant differential expression of membrane protein-encoding genes between the virulent and attenuated strains. A major downregulation of map1-related genes was observed for the two attenuated strains, whereas upregulation of genes encoding for hypothetical membrane proteins was observed for the four strains. Moreover, CDS_05140, which encodes for a putative porin, displays the highest gene expression in both attenuated strains. For the attenuated strains, the significant downregulation of map1-related gene expression and upregulation of genes encoding other membrane proteins could be important in the implementation of efficient immune responses after vaccination with attenuated vaccines. Moreover, this study revealed an upregulation of gene expression for 8 genes encoding components of Type IV secretion system and 3 potential effectors, mainly in the virulent Gardel strain. Our transcriptomic study, supported by previous proteomic studies, provides and also confirms new information regarding the characterization of genes involved in E. ruminantium virulence and attenuation mechanisms.

Bacterial pathogens have evolved numerous strategies to corrupt, hijack or mimic cellular processes in order to survive and proliferate. Among those strategies, Type IV effectors (T4Es) are proteins secreted by pathogenic bacteria to manipulate host cell processes during infection. They are delivered into eukaryotic cells in an ATP-dependent manner via the type IV secretion system, a specialized multiprotein complex. T4Es contain a wide spectrum of features including eukaryotic-like domains, localization signals or a C-terminal translocation signal. A combination of these features enables prediction of T4Es in a given bacterial genome. In this study, we developed a web-based comprehensive suite of tools with a user-friendly graphical interface. This version 2.0 of S4TE (Searching Algorithm for Type IV Effector Proteins; http://sate.cirad.fr) enables accurate prediction and comparison of T4Es. Search parameters and threshold can be customized by the user to work with any genome sequence, whether publicly available or not. Applications range from characterizing effector features and identifying potential T4Es to analyzing the effectors based on the genome G+C composition and local gene density. S4TE 2.0 allows the comparison of putative T4E repertoires of up to four bacterial strains at the same time. The software identifies T4E orthologs among strains and provides a Venn diagram and lists of genes for each intersection. New interactive features offer the best visualization of the location of candidate T4Es and hyperlinks to NCBI and Pfam databases. S4TE 2.0 is designed to evolve rapidly with the publication of new experimentally validated T4Es, which will reinforce the predictive power of the algorithm. The computational methodology can be used to identify a wide spectrum of candidate bacterial effectors that lack sequence conservation but have similar amino acid characteristics. This approach will provide very valuable information about bacterial host-specificity and virulence factors and help identify host targets for the development of new anti-bacterial molecules.

After its introduction in Turkey in November 2013 and subsequent spread in this country, lumpy skin disease (LSD) was first reported in the western Turkey in May 2015. It was observed in cattle in Greece and reported to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in August 2015. From May 2015 to August 2016, 1,092 outbreaks of lumpy skin disease were reported in cattle from western Turkey and eight Balkan countries: Greece, Bulgaria, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania. During this period, the median LSD spread rate was 7.3 km/week. The frequency of outbreaks was highly seasonal, with little or no transmission reported during the winter. Also, the skewed distribution of spread rates suggested two distinct underlying epidemiological processes, associating local and distant spread possibly related to vectors and cattle trade movements, respectively.

Following the re-emergence of the bluetongue virus serotype 8 (BTV8) in Septem-ber 2015 and in accordance with the European Commission's regulatory require-ments, a new entomological surveillance network has been set up throughout mainland France to monitor the activity of Culicoides, which are vectors of BTV. The new Culicoides surveillance network uses suction light traps that opera-te one night per week in one site per eco-climatic zone. Twenty-four eco-clima-tic zones were determined in mainland France by analyzing the data collected by the first surveillance network set up from 2009 to 2012 during the emergen-ce of BTV8. Each eco-climatic zone, regrouping one or more French departments, is homogeneous, taking into account the diversity of Culicoides species, the dura-tion of vector inactivity and the week of the beginning and the end of inactivity. This entomological surveillance active from November (Y0) to April (Y1) has made it possible to determine successfully periods without Culicoides vectors for the different eco-climatic zones defined on the continental territory. The informa-tion provided by this network, coupled with the surveillance of viral circulation, made it possible to report during winters 2015 to 2018 several French departmen-ts in BTV seasonally free zones, thus lifting restrictions on livestock movements. Research impact highlights: Following the re-emergence of BTV8 in September 2015, a new Culicoides surveillance network is operational throughout mainland France to determine the periods without vectors in each eco-climatic zone. The information pro-vided by this network, coupled with viral circulation monitoring, allows BTV's seasonal free zones to be declared each winter, thus lifting restrictions on livestock movements.

Six institutional partners, CIRAD, CNRS, EID Mediterranee, INRA, IRD and the Univer-sity of Montpellier have been working together since 2010 on the issue of arthropod vectors of pathogens that cause infectious diseases in humans and animals, and insect pests responsible for damages to crops. This collaboration for over 8 years has resulted in the creation of “Vectopole Sud”, a Montpellier network of platforms dedicated to re-searches on arthropods of medical, veterinary and agricultural importance. The network draws from the infrastructure and expertise of each partner to improve early warning systems, monitoring, control of pests and vectors in order to protect hu-man health, agriculture and livestock production. The network has received continuous funding by the French Government and the Occitanie Region enabling it to modernize its different laboratories and rearing facilities and support the research activities. Vectopole Sud includes four experimental platforms, confined insectariums and associ-ated laboratories, which are open to national and international partners. Overall, the Vec-topole Sud has a network of partners in Europe and tropical regions worldwide, notably through IRD and CIRAD, two French institutions supporting research for development. Vectopole Sud brings together over 400 researchers and technicians from five research units belonging to the Montpellier University of Excellence and Agropolis International scientific communities. It conducts multidisciplinary research and expertise on biolo-gy, public & animal health, ecology, environmental science, genetics, and evolutionary medicine. It contributes to a better environment, animal health and human wellbeing through an integrated One Health approach, by fighting human and animal diseases to ensure more productive and sustainable farming systems (food security). We will present the different platforms of the Vectopole Sud network, its various activi-ties (infrastructures, research, services and training) as well as its different perspectives. www.vectopole-sud.fr

In order to determine the prevalence of E. ruminantium in A. hebraeum and variegatum and the E. ruminantium isolate structure in Mozambique, cattle and wildlife were sampled across the south and center of Mozambique as well as in the adjacent Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa. The prevalence of E. rumimantium in relation to the tick species and locality was analyzed. Mozambican Ehrlichia isolates were typed using MLST and the distribution of groups clustering genotypes were analysed. In total, 722 and 388 of A. hebraeum and A. variegatum ticks were collected from 31 localities and screened for E. ruminantium, using pCS20 nested PCR and Sol1TqM qPCR. E. ruminantium tick prevalence in cattle varied from 0% to 26.7%, with no infected ticks determined in 7 localities. In wildlife, the prevalence was 8.2 % in the KNP and 6.2% in hunting concessions of the Sofala province. However, no significant difference in prevalence was found between sampling sites and tick species. Most MLST genotypes from Mozambique clustered into subgroup 2C and 2E, which were present in similar proportions in 5 of the 19 localities. Interestingly, MLST genotypes from group G1 and G2D were exclusively found in areas of A. variegatum distribution, while subgroup G2C was only detected in A. hebraeum areas. Moreover, genotypes from subgroup G2E were found in both A. hebraeum and A. variegatum areas. These results contribute to a better understanding of spatial distribution of E. ruminantium and will aid in improvement of heartwater monitoring and control strategies in Mozambique. (Texte integral)

Background: Ehrlichia ruminantium is the causal agent of heartwater, a fatal tropical disease affecting ruminants with important economic impacts. This bacterium is transmitted by Amblyomma ticks and is present in sub-Saharan Africa, islands in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, where it represents a threat to the American mainland. Methods: An automated DNA extraction method was adapted for Amblyomma ticks and a new qPCR targeting the pCS20 region was developed to improve E. ruminantium screening capacity and diagnosis. The first step in the preparation of tick samples, before extraction, was not automated but was considerably improved by using a Tissue Lyser. The new pCS20 Sol1 qPCR and a previously published pCS20 Cow qPCR were evaluated with the OIE standard pCS20 nested PCR. Results: pCS20 Sol1 qPCR was found to be more specific than the nested PCR, with a 5-fold increase in sensitivity (3 copies/reaction vs 15 copies/reaction), was less prone to contamination and less time-consuming. As pCS20 Sol1 qPCR did not detect Rickettsia, Anasplasma and Babesia species or closely related species such as Panola Mountain Ehrlichia, E. chaffeensis and E. canis, its specificity was also better than Cow qPCR. In parallel, a tick 16S qPCR was developed for the quality control of DNA extraction that confirmed the good reproducibility of the automated extraction. The whole method, including the automated DNA extraction and pCS20 Sol1 qPCR, was shown to be sensitive, specific and highly reproducible with the same limit of detection as the combined manual DNA extraction and nested PCR, i.e. 6 copies/reaction. Finally, 96 samples can be tested in one day compared to the four days required for manual DNA extraction and nested PCR. Conclusions: The adaptation of an automated DNA extraction using a DNA/RNA viral extraction kit for tick samples and the development of a new qPCR increased the accuracy of E. ruminantium epidemiological studies, as well as the diagnostic capabilities and turn-over time for surveillance of heartwater. This new method paves the way for large-scale screening of other bacteria and viruses in ticks as well as genetic characterization of ticks and tick-pathogen coevolution studies.