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How well do YOU know your zoonotic diseases?

Between World Zoonoses Day 2022 (6 July) and One Health Day 2022 (3 November), the One Health Poultry Hub website featured ZOODLE – a word game inspired by the popular New York Times Wordle game. On each of the 87 weekdays between these two international awareness days we encouraged our team and others to pit themselves against our ZOODLE to ‘diagnose’ a zoonotic diseases-related word in six or fewer tries.

Why did we do this?

We wanted to highlight the link between zoonoses and a One Health approach. By joining up the two awareness days with ZOODLE we found what we hope was a fun way of doing this.

The landscape of infectious diseases and the threat they present is changing. It is critical the world finds ways to minimise those threats.

  • Some 60% of human infections originate from animals (i.e., are zoonotic in nature).
  • More than 70% of all new and emerging infectious diseases affecting people are zoonotic.
  • The rapid intensification of livestock production, including poultry production, presents an increasing risk area for zoonotic disease emergence.
  • One Health approaches are needed to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease.

When the game was launched, One Health Poultry Hub Director Professor Fiona Tomley said:

“Wordle has proved an infectious bit of fun.  We hope ZOODLE will also be great fun and perhaps a diverting start to people’s days. But behind it lies more serious concern for public health, food security, the environment and animal welfare. We aim to increase public awareness and understanding of the changing landscape of infectious diseases, the threats they present and, importantly, the way forward to minimise those threats.”

ZOODLE focus words

As well as offering the game, we took regular dives into a ZOODLE word to offer information or reflections on how the word relates to zoonoses, One Health or the work of the One Health Poultry Hub. These ZOODLE focus words appeared the day after they featured as a solution in the game.

Check out ZOODLE focus words:

 

One Health Poultry Hub

The global demand for chicken meat and eggs is escalating and the challenge to meet it in a safer and more sustainable way affects us all. We are working in four countries in Asia to address this fundamental development goal.