The One Health approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, offering a multidisciplinary lens through which to understand and address complex health challenges. Vector-borne diseases (VBDs), transmitted by mosquitoes and other arthropods, exemplify this interconnection, as their transmission is shaped by ecological conditions and environmental change.
This presentation will use West Nile Fever (WNF) as a case study to explore how the One Health framework can help us understand and respond to climate-sensitive health risks. WNF is a mosquito-borne disease maintained in bird populations with incidental transmission to humans.
Recent research has pointed to the potential influence of climatic and environmental factors—such as rising temperatures, heatwaves, altered rainfall, and land-use changes—on the dynamics of VBDs, including WNF. While many questions remain open, these trends highlight the importance of integrated approaches that can consider multiple drivers of disease risk. Israel, situated in the rapidly warming Eastern Mediterranean, presents a unique setting for investigating these connections, due to its climatic variability, diverse ecosystems, and central role in bird migration routes. The presentation will review recent epidemiological patterns in Israel, focusing on the 2024 outbreak, which resulted in over 900 confirmed cases and 74 deaths. It will provide a conceptual overview of the One Health framework and review current knowledge on the environmental and climatic factors that may shape WNF dynamics. The goal is to lay the groundwork for future research that seeks to clarify these relationships and support more effective public health strategies in the face of global environmental change.
