From the pre-modern era when horse care was the subject of veterinary attention because of economic interest, to 1762 when the first veterinary school was establish to control the devastating economic effects of Rinderpest (Cattle plague) in cattle; basically veterinary medicine arose both as a practice and profession to attend to specific human largely economic and nutritional needs. It took two hundred and fifty years after the establishment of the first veterinary school to finally get Rinderpest eradicated worldwide. Meanwhile, environmental degradation/pollution and current modern economic/trade practices have led to an estimated 61% of emerging human infections over the past fifty years or thereabout being transmitted as zoonotic diseases of human beings transmitted from animals. During the same period, non-zoonotic animal diseases now have serious economic, mortality, public health, trans-boundary and international trade effects; and pets have become significant human emotive partners. These challenges call for an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach, with Veterinary Medicine being the fulcrum of a One Health initiative to attain optimal health for animal, humans (and plants) in a common environment. Nigerian veterinarians have the professional agricultural-environmental--medical-veterinary responsibility to have an active and pioneer paradigm shift towards instutionalization of One Health in Nigeria, lest it suffers from paradigm paralysis- a harmful inaction and/or resistance to the imperative of expedient change.
Key words: Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Public Health, Human Public Health, One Health, Paradigm shift
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