From the Approach to the Concept: One Health in Latin America-Experiences and Perspectives in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.

Professionals throughout the world have been working to assess the interdisciplinary interaction and interdependence between health and wellbeing in a constantly changing environment. The One Health concept was developed to encourage sustainable collaborative partnerships and to promote optimal health for people, animals, plants, the environment, and the whole planet. The dissemination of scientific discoveries and policies, by working directly with diverse communities, has been one of the main goals for Global One Health. The One Health concept has also been referred or related to as "One Medicine, One Medicine-One Health, One World-One Health, EcoHealth," and Planetary Health," depending on each fundamental view and approach. In Latin America, despite the concept still being discussed among health professionals and educators, several One Health initiatives have been used daily for more than decades. One Health action has been applied especially in rural and underserved urban areas where low socioeconomic status, lack of health professionals, and scarcity of medical resources may require professionals to work together. Local communities from diverse social and economic statuses, including indigenous populations have been working with institutions and social organizations for many years, accomplishing results through grassroots movements. These "bottom-up" socio-community approaches have also been tools for the prevention and control of diseases, such practice has preceded the One Health concepts in Latin American countries. It is strongly believed that collaborative, multidisciplinary, political, and economic initiatives with prosocial focus may become investments toward obtaining significant results in the face of global, economic and health challenges; working for a healthier world with inclusivity, equity, and equality. In this study, it is briefly presented how the One Health approach has been initiated and developed in Latin America, highlighting the events and actions taken in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.

Detection of Rickettsia sp. strain Itinguçú in Ornithodoros faccinii (Acari: Argasidae) parasitizing the toad Rhinella ornata (Anura: Bufonidae) in Brazil.

The pivotal role of amphibians in food webs and their value as indicators of disequilibrium in ecosystem health have long been recognized by wildlife biologists. However, massive pathogen-induced declines in global amphibian populations reported during the last 30 years served to alert the scientific community that knowledge of amphibian disease ecology, including parasitic and vector-borne conditions, was and remains incipient. Herein, we report the detection of a Rickettsia bacterium infecting larvae of the argasid tick Ornithodoros faccinii, collected from the toad Rhinella ornata, in Southeastern Brazil. Fragments of the genes 16S rDNA, gltA, htrA, sca1, sca4, and ompB were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), but the sequence encoding the ompA antigen was not detected. Nucleotide sequencing and multi-locus (gltA, htrA, sca1, and sca4) phylogenetic analyses characterized the bacterium, designated Rickettsia sp. strain Itinguçú, as a novel member of the spotted fever group (SFG) of the Rickettsia, closely related to the Rickettsia massiliae and to a lesser extent the Rickettsia helvetica subgroups. The apparent absence of the ompA protein together with limited levels of nucleotide (90.5 %) and amino acid (82-83 %) sequence identity, relative to the ompB gene of other species in the R. massiliae subgroup, were unusual features that may reflect adaptation to selective pressures exerted by the tick and/or amphibian immune systems. The ompB sequence was exploited to develop a low-cost method for differential identification of Rickettsia sp. strain Itinguçú, based on restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of amplicons (PCR-RFLP). The characterization of this novel bacterium provided an unprecedented record of infection by an SFG Rickettsia in a member of the family Argasidae infesting a cold-blooded animal and raised the number of tick-associated Rickettsia reported in Brazil to sixteen. Moreover, it highlighted the value of and the requirement for continued and extended surveillance of wildlife as potential sources of emerging tick-borne pathogens.

Intestinal Lesion in a Dog Due to Cryptococcus gattii Type VGII and Review of Published Cases of Canine Gastrointestinal Cryptococcosis.

Cryptococcosis is a mycosis caused by yeasts of genus Cryptococcus, mainly the species C. neoformans and C. gattii that can affect humans and animals. These yeasts are widely distributed in the environment and are typically associated with avian droppings and decaying wood. Most infections are related to the respiratory tract, but the central nervous system and cutaneous lesions are also reported in the literature. The present report is a case of cryptococcosis in an 18-month-old unspayed female English Bulldog with the main complaint of weight loss and diarrhea. The presence of two large masses observed in an ultrasound examination leads us to perform an exploratory laparotomy. Considering the size of the lesion and the impossibility of owner to provide intensive care, the consent for euthanasia was requested. The postmortem diagnosis of cryptococcosis was revealed by cytological evaluation, and the involvement of C. gattii VGII was confirmed by isolation and identification tests as well as by the detection of the URA5 gene restriction fragment length polymorphism PCR analysis. Reports in the literature of the involvement of Cryptococcus in gastrointestinal lesions are rare in both human and veterinary medicine. Data about different forms of cryptococcosis are important to provide more knowledge of uncommon clinical presentations of this yeast and therefore improve the diagnoses and decisions for the best therapy.