One World, One Health

One Health Trust

One World, One Health is brought to you by the One Health Trust. In this podcast, we bring you the latest ideas to improve the health of our planet and its people. Our world faces many urgent challenges from pandemics and decreasing biodiversity to pollution and melting polar ice caps, among others. This podcast highlights solutions to these problems from the scientists and experts working to make a difference.

  1. Beyond the Frontlines – Tackling Drug Resistance in Conflict Zones

    1H AGO

    Beyond the Frontlines – Tackling Drug Resistance in Conflict Zones

    Send a text Imagine this scene: A family’s house was destroyed when it was bombed during a war. They got out with the clothes on their backs – nothing more. When they were fleeing, the mother was hit with fragments from another bomb. It tore off part of her leg. Dirt got in the wound. They made it to a refugee camp, but the wound got infected. With nothing available to treat the injury, the infection got worse. She had a drug-resistant infection that wasn’t treatable with regular antibiotics. Her entire leg and part of her hip had to be removed to save her life. She will have a physical disability for the rest of her life. This is just one story of drug resistance or antimicrobial resistance (AMR)  and the impact of armed conflict. Report after report finds that victims of armed conflict and refugees – both those seeking shelter abroad and inside their own countries – are especially likely to suffer from drug-resistant infections. Dr. Aula Abbara, Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Acute Medicine and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College, London, has been studying the problem firsthand. She’s worked with teams that found people injured in Syria’s 15-year-long conflict not only suffered terrible wounds, but then developed worse infections because of crowded and unsanitary conditions in healthcare facilities. These war-damaged hospital laboratories in Syria, especially, lacked the capacity to test for drug-resistant bacteria, and so doctors didn’t know which antibiotics to prescribe to treat patients’ infections. Solutions require taking a One Health approach, Dr. Abbara and colleagues have found. She and her colleagues call for programs to bring in more health professionals and healthcare access; introduction of easy-to-use diagnostics so people’s infections can be immediately diagnosed and thus treated with the correct drugs; stopping the improper use and distribution of antibiotics; and proper surveillance so that professionals know which drug-resistant infections are spreading and where. In this episode of One World, One Health, Dr. Abbara chats with host Maggie Fox about what she’s seen and what might help.

    19 min
  2. Saving Lives with Midwives

    JAN 20

    Saving Lives with Midwives

    Send a text Having a baby should be safe. Yet it’s far too often a death sentence for both the mother and the baby. An estimated 260,000 women died in 2023 during and right after giving birth, and those numbers will have risen with the loss of United States global aid dollars. There are ways to improve this – better prenatal care is an obvious one. According to the World Health Organization, women giving birth most often die from severe bleeding, infections, or other complications. Pregnant women also die from high blood pressure or from unsafe abortions or complications of miscarriage. If women can get the right medical care during pregnancy, delivery, and after childbirth, the risk of death plummets. But doctors and nurses can be scarce, especially in lower-income countries. Women also often fear going to hospitals or clinics, mistrust them, or simply lack the money to make use of them.  A much easier solution is a properly trained midwife. The International Confederation of Midwives supports groups that train and advocate for midwives, who can help ensure safe births. Some countries even have programs to train and license midwives. Professor Doreen Kaura of the University of the Western Cape in Belville, South Africa heads one such program. She also conducts research into the effects of midwifery practice. Not only can well-trained midwives provide high-level medical care for pregnant and delivering women, but they can take into account cultural beliefs and practices that earn trust and ensure that women show up for the lifesaving care they need, Kaura has found. “Respectful care is not optional,” she says. Listen here as she tells One World, One Health about the benefits of midwives and how they can save both lives and money.

    20 min
  3. Food as Medicine — For People and the Planet

    12/16/2025

    Food as Medicine — For People and the Planet

    Send a text Fighting climate change can feel like a hopeless battle. Who can take on the giant fossil fuel companies when governments are not even bothering? How can countries act when every day temperatures rise, superstorms flood coastal areas, droughts devastate crops, and weather patterns bring insects and new diseases to areas previously spared? But there is something powerful and important that each and every resident of this planet can do to improve the health of the planet and at the same time improve their own health: eat better. A new report from the EAT-Lancet Commission lays out just how to do it and it details the benefits of what it calls the Planetary Health Diet. The current way people produce food contributes 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, the report notes – and that in turn is causing the increasing disruption of weather systems. Even if the entire world stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, if people keep producing food the way they do now, global warming would continue. But a change in the way people eat can help stop it, and according to the commission, it would not be difficult or unpleasant. The mostly plant-based diet the experts recommend would not be a radical departure from how many people around the world eat now and it is based on what research shows would reduce rates of the biggest killers of people in most high-income countries and increasingly in low- and middle-income countries – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It would mean eating mostly whole grains; fruits; vegetables; legumes, such as beans; tubers, such as sweet potatoes; and cutting out added fats and sugars. People could still eat some meat and dairy if they wanted to, but variety should replace ultra-processed foods. This change in diet would drive a change in agriculture that would slow the destruction of forests that in turn could reduce pollution from burning and return biodiversity that nurtures a healthier environment, the report says. And moving away from intensive livestock farming could help stop the conditions that have fueled the rise of antimicrobial resistance – so-called drug-resistant superbugs – that evolve when farmers feed antibiotics to their animals. In this episode, Dr. Patrick Webb, Professor of Food and Nutrition Economics, Policy, and Programs at Tufts University in Boston and an EAT-Lancet Commissioner, explains some of the ideas behind the report and why food is medicine, both for humanity and for the planet.

    21 min
  4. If Governments Aren't Doing Enough to Fight Climate Change, Who Else Can?

    11/11/2025

    If Governments Aren't Doing Enough to Fight Climate Change, Who Else Can?

    Send a text A new report on health and climate change paints the grimmest picture yet about what’s going on – not just that 2024 was the hottest year on record, but evidence that many governments have stopped even pretending to try to do anything about it. The 2025 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change finds that more than half a million people die every year from heat-related causes, up 23 percent since the 1990s. Air pollution just from wildfire smoke was linked to 154,000 deaths in 2024. And 2.5 million people die every year because of the continued burning of fossil fuels, the report says. But Dr. Tafadzwa Mabhaudhi, Professor of Climate Change, Food Systems, and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Director of the Lancet Countdown in Africa, says it’s not all bad news. Communities, people acting in groups, city governments, and others can make a difference. “We do have the power,” says Tafadzwa, who joins One World, One Health host Maggie Fox in this episode to talk about the report and what he sees for the future. African nations, especially, have the opportunity to show the way as they build cities that take advantage of clean energy, says Tafadzwa, who is also a professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Future Africa, at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. The report finds hope in this trend, and estimates 160,000 lives are being saved annually as communities shift away from coal and enjoy cleaner air. Listen as Tafadzwa describes some of the successes in fighting climate change and what people and communities can do to encourage their governments to act.

    18 min
  5. Protect Land Rights, Save Forests, Save Lives, Too

    10/14/2025

    Protect Land Rights, Save Forests, Save Lives, Too

    Send a text Of course, saving forests is good for the animals that live there and the environment. But saving forests where indigenous people live can have another surprising benefit. It can be good for the health of all of the people who live throughout the region, researchers have found. That benefit seems to come not just because forests are healthier ecosystems in general, but because indigenous people are good at taking care of them, a new study showed. Burning forests can cause heart disease, lung disease, skin conditions, and kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, according to numerous estimates. Destroying forests spreads out insects that carry malaria, yellow fever, and other infections that sicken and kill people. Dr. Júlia Rodrigues Barreto of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo in Brazil; Dr. Ana Filipa Palmeirim of the Federal University of Pará, Brazil and Université Libre de Bruxelles; and colleagues wanted to see if protection of indigenous land had an effect on health. They looked at 20 years of data from the Amazon, which reaches into 9 South American countries and is the most biodiverse region on the planet. As with everything involving biology, the picture is complicated. But if at least 45 percent of the forest cover was preserved in an indigenous territory – an area preserved for the people who originally lived there – nearby areas reported fewer diseases caused by fires, as well as vector-borne diseases such as malaria that are spread by insects. They reported their findings in the journal Communications Earth and Environment. In this episode of One World, One Health, listen as they discuss what they found and what it could mean for everyone on the planet.

    17 min
  6. A Viral Surprise at a Bat Cave

    09/30/2025

    A Viral Surprise at a Bat Cave

    Send a text Bats can carry several viruses that can kills humans. Some well understood – rabies, the deadliest virus of all, is transmitted directly from bats to people from bat bites. Other viruses, such as Hendra virus, are a little more mysterious and indirect in how they spread. And researchers are still unsure how viruses such as Ebola, Marburg and the coronavirus that caused Covid-19 get from bats to people. However, a team working in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda may have just gotten a big clue. Bosco Atukwatse, a Ugandan wildlife biologist working with the Kyambura Lion Project, set up solar-powered cameras near the mouth of Python Cave in the Maramagambo Forest in the park. He knew the cave was home to multitudes of Egyptian fruit bats and was hoping for pictures of leopards and spotted hyenas. What he got were dozens of images of animals hunting the bats. Birds, snakes, giant lizards called monitors, a very persistent leopard, monkeys, baboons, and a catlike animal called a genet all regularly hunted in the cave. This behavior was notable on its own. But the bats in this cave are also known to be infected with Marburg virus, a rare but deadly virus that can cause a hemorrhagic fever. Two visitors to the cave had been infected with Marburg, including a Dutch tourist who died in 2008 and a U.S. tourist. The findings don’t prove that animals who hunt bats are spreading Marburg, says Dr. Alex Braczkowski, Science Director of the Kyambura Lion Project, who reported the discovery on the open repository site Zenodo. They do, however, provide a starting point for possible further investigations. Listen as Alex and Bosco chat with One World, One Health host Maggie Fox about the bats, the animals that hunt them, and what it all might mean.

    16 min
  7. An Unknown Burden – Drug resistance and lab capacity in Africa

    09/17/2025

    An Unknown Burden – Drug resistance and lab capacity in Africa

    Send a text Drug-resistant germs are hidden killers in more than one way. Not only are the microbes invisible to the human eye, in many places, they’re invisible because people simply are not looking for them systematically. Doctors often do not know what infections their patients have and treat them based on best guesses, which allows for ineffective treatments and exacerbates drug resistance. Policymakers don’t know which infections are most common among populations and cannot make informed decisions about needed treatments or vaccines. This is a major problem across Africa and a new report shows just how complex the problem is. The Mapping AMR and Antimicrobial use Partnership (MAAP), which included the One Health Trust as well as the African Society for Laboratory Medicine; Africa CDC; the East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community; Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters, a nonprofit focused on technology and communication;  the clinical research group IQVIA; and the West African Health Organization, collected data from laboratories from 14 countries in Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Eswatini, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). “The study revealed significant gaps in bacteriology testing capacities,” the group, whose work was paid for by the UK government's Fleming Fund, wrote in PLoS Medicine. It's the biggest survey yet of testing for antimicrobial resistance – AMR or drug resistance – in Africa. Among the gaps: too little testing overall, a lack of laboratory capacities, and poor coordination and analysis of records. Many records were kept only on paper, which made them almost impossible to access. None of this surprises Dr. Sabiha Essack, South African Research Chair in Antibiotic Resistance and One Health and Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.  In an ideal world, she says, a doctor, nurse or other professional should see a patient, test them to see what specific microbe is causing an infection, check to see which drugs will successfully fight that germ, and then treat the patient accordingly. Cheap point-of-care tests should be available everywhere and the results of those tests should be entered into systems that officials can use to make policy decisions, she says. Listen as she tells One World, One Health host Maggie Fox other ways to improve our knowledge about the drug-resistant infections that lurk out there.  Want to know more? You can find One World, One Health episodes on drug-resistant infections in cancer patients; superbugs and microplastics; the personal toll of antibiotic resistance; one woman’s antibiotic resistance nightmare; how to prevent drug resistance, and more.

    18 min
  8. The Invisible Second Threat to Cancer Patients – Drug-Resistant Infections

    07/01/2025

    The Invisible Second Threat to Cancer Patients – Drug-Resistant Infections

    Send a text It’s a common scenario for a cancer patient. They’re undergoing treatment and get what’s known as a peripherally inserted central catheter or PICC (pronounced “pick”) line to make it more convenient to administer drugs. They are in and out of the hospital or just the clinic frequently to see various providers. The treatment they receive may run down their immune system a little bit. Just having cancer may have damaged their immune system. So then they get an infection. Perhaps it’s no big deal. A round of antibiotics may take care of it. However, increasingly, these infections are resistant to antibiotics – something known as antimicrobial resistance or AMR. Then, the patient must wait weeks or even months to resume cancer treatment while the infection is treated. And, all too often, the infection itself may kill the patient. In fact, infections are the second-leading cause of death for cancer patients. Dr. Yehoda M. Martei, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology-Oncology) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues have been working to find out just how common these infections are. Among patients hospitalized for treatment, cancer patients were up to twice as likely to get a drug-resistant infection, she and colleagues found. Among outpatients – people getting treatment at clinics or offices but not staying in the hospital – cancer patients had three times the risk of drug-resistant infections. Listen as Dr. Martei tells One World, One Health host Maggie Fox about her findings, what they mean, and what must be done to protect cancer patients and ensure infections don't stop them from getting the treatment they need.

    17 min
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About

One World, One Health is brought to you by the One Health Trust. In this podcast, we bring you the latest ideas to improve the health of our planet and its people. Our world faces many urgent challenges from pandemics and decreasing biodiversity to pollution and melting polar ice caps, among others. This podcast highlights solutions to these problems from the scientists and experts working to make a difference.

Information

  • Creator
    One Health Trust
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    98
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 One World, One Health
  • Show Website
    One World, One Health