Fig 1.
The One Health concept and components.
The One Health concept allows for an emerging infectious disease such as the Ebola epidemic to be viewed and addressed in a tripartite manner: factors from human (pink), animal (blue) [52], and environmental (green) health are considered in the forecast and control of disease.
Fig 2.
Ebola as a case study of interactions between human, animal, and environmental health drivers.
Climactic and anthropomorphic factors influence environmental drivers such as drought and deforestation. These factors in turn affect the populations and migrations of the primary reservoir of the Ebola virus, fruit bats, as well as other animals that may prey upon them or compete with them for fruit. These animal drivers influence the routes and rates of human infection through bushmeat consumption and possibly other means. Human-to-human spread is exacerbated by burial practices, caregiver barrier protocols, and global travel. Human drivers of disease feed back to influence animal health via possible pet infection and the transport of infected wildlife, and environmental health through increasing human–animal contacts through harvesting natural resources from remote forests.