ABOUT THE ISL INITIATIVE

The One Health paradigm emphasizes the interconnectedness of human, wildlife, and environmental health. Wildlife conservation and emerging infectious disease (EID) screening are two sides of the same coin, since 60% of EIDs are zoonotic in nature, and over 70% of zoonotic EIDs have an origin in wildlife.

A promising, cost-efficient way to protect people from emerging diseases while protecting threatened animal populations is to integrate disease monitoring into broader conservation efforts, and vice versa.

Twenty years ago it took USD 2.7 billion and 13 years to create a draft of a single human genome; today, one can be sequenced overnight for as low as USD 1000. Moore’s Law, applied originally to the declining size of semiconductors, can also be applied to genomic sequencing; in fact, the cost of genomic sequencing is outpacing the Law as technology becomes miniaturized. Yet this technology has largely remained sequestered, due to the prohibitive cost of high throughput sequencers and consumable reagents.

In effect, one end of the spectrum of genomic capacity is racing ahead, leaving the other behind. The ISL Initiative aims to shift the paradigm of the expensive molecular laboratory operated by a nation’s elite scientists, to one that is more affordable, accessible, and ultimately, democratic.

According to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) (11), there are 125 reference laboratories globally on record that are certified to screen for one or more targeted pathogens. None of these labs focus on broad pathogen surveillance. Ironically, and in keeping with global inequalities in access to laboratories, they are distributed such that countries with the highest emerging infectious disease risks do not in fact contain adequate laboratory facilities. Seventy eight (62%) of 125 reference laboratories are in Europe and North America; only 33 (26%) are in Asia (14 in China and 8 in Japan), with 12 labs (34%) spread between 7 countries; 3 (∼2%) are in Africa; 4 (∼3%) are in Australia, and 8 (∼6%) are in South America.

However, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central and South America carry the burden of EID risk. Through our research, we concluded that despite not accounting for laboratory size or screening methods and capacity, it is clear that many regions with zoonotic hotspots, which are often biodiversity hotspots, lacked testing facilities with the capability of conducting disease surveillance or biodiversity monitoring.

Current efforts at surveillance – both of biodiversity and health – are functional, but are expensive, maintained by a select few countries, and subject to political whims, as evidenced by the 2019 shift in funding for PREDICT, a recall of U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) support for the EcoHealth Alliance, and the brief withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). As such, we demonstrate that these solutions are not immediately scalable, nor do they stimulate widespread and equitable capacity.

The Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral global treaty with 193 parties, has three objectives: 1) the conservation of biological diversity, 2) the sustainable use of its components, and 3) the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic materials. The third objective is further defined by The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization which entered into force on 12 October 2014. Its objective is to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity arising from the utilization of genetic resources, a task done more appropriately when resources stay in-country and are used by local scientists.