Prevention and preparedness play central roles in global health security, with the EU’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (DG HERA) now working with third-country governments to strengthen cooperation on medical countermeasures for preparedness and response to serious cross-border public health threats. The recently published WHO Pandemic Agreement also represents a significant step forward in strengthening the global health architecture to better address future pandemics.
While timely access to critical medical resources, such as vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics often take centre stage in preparedness discussions, a crucial dimension remains underappreciated: animal health. Yet, history tells us that this is precisely where the next global health emergency may begin.
The term “Disease X” a kind of placeholder name adopted by the WHO in 2018 refers to an unknown pathogen with the potential to cause a serious international epidemic or pandemic. Although Disease X is hypothetical, the concept is very real, and one fact is consistently reaffirmed by scientific evidence: pandemics predominantly originate in animals. Zoonotic pathogens (those that can jump from animals to humans) are the likeliest culprits for future pandemics, as SARS, MERS, Ebola, avian influenza, and mostly recently, COVID-19, have all been linked to animal origins. This reality places animal health systems on the front line of prevention, long before the first human case emerges.
The WHO Pandemic Agreement reflects a notable shift toward integrated approaches that span across sectors. A few articles within the text touch on the need to reduce risks of interspecies transmission, strengthen surveillance, and promote the One Health approach, a framework that recognises the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. The animal health sector is uniquely positioned to play a central role in helping to turn these ambitions into concrete outcomes.
Tackling disease outbreaks in livestock and wildlife at their source prevents them from spreading to other animals, and more importantly to people.
Animal health professionals, including veterinarians, epidemiologists, researchers, and medicines manufacturers, are already deeply engaged in surveillance, prevention, and management of animal disease outbreaks. But continued threats from infectious diseases and evolving pathogens influencing disease distribution and severity have reinforced the need for robust surveillance, early warning systems, and preparedness planning. A recent report from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) shares some key facts on how animal health impacts human health:
- Animal diseases are migrating into previously unaffected areas and half (47%) of these diseases have zoonotic potential.
- Between 2005 and 2023 68% of the notifications to WOAH for emerging diseases were considered to have zoonotic potential.
- Outbreaks of bird flu in mammals more than doubled in 2024 compared to 2023, increasing the risk of further spread and transmission to people.
Tackling disease outbreaks in livestock and wildlife at their source prevents them from spreading to other animals, and more importantly to people. Moreover, taking bird flu as an example, aside from the devastating loss of poultry, HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) is causing unprecedented mass die-offs in wild-bird populations. This can seriously disrupt ecosystems and threaten biodiversity. And, although in this case the risk of human infection remains low, the more animals are affected, the greater the possibility for the virus to jump from mammal to mammal, and potentially also to people.
It’s clear that decreasing the burden of animal diseases will mitigate the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. Preparedness actions must begin before a pathogen reaches human populations, so investing in disease surveillance, vaccine development, and healthcare infrastructure for animals is not a luxury but a necessity.
Despite their importance, animal health systems often face chronic underfunding. This leaves significant gaps in pandemic preparedness planning, particularly in developing countries where disease emergence risks are high and surveillance capacity is limited. For example, a key vulnerability globally is the inadequate number of trained veterinarians, and Europe is not a stranger to this phenomenon either. An insufficient vet-to-livestock ratio not only means less prevention of zoonotic diseases, but it also means less effective surveillance and a higher likelihood of diseases crossing borders.
The path to pandemic prevention runs not only through our hospitals and laboratories, but also through the world’s ecosystems, our farms, food markets, and veterinary clinics.
By directing greater resources and political attention toward animal health, promoting the development of joint training programmes for the workforce at the human-animal-environment interface, and developing integrated disease surveillance systems the global community can close these gaps and better protect itself from future disease emergencies, while also creating more resilient health systems overall.
The WHO Pandemic Agreement offers a framework to facilitate this shift, as its emphasis on international cooperation, technology transfer, and capacity-building opens the door to greater collaboration between human and animal health sectors. One of the key challenges ahead lies in making sure these ideas are not only endorsed on paper but implemented in practice, which means ensuring that veterinary services are embedded within European and national pandemic preparedness plans and that animal vaccines producers are consulted before a disease outbreak reaches crisis scenario. DG HERA and the EU Preparedness Union Strategy published earlier this year set a good basis for addressing emerging health threats, but the role for animal health is not clearly defined, nor mentioned in the latter.
It is important that decision-makers understand the value of One Health action, i.e. involving all the health sectors. preventive action over reactive measures, while also fostering a regular dialogue between the public and private sectors, including Chief Veterinary Officers, to ensure strategies are informed by real-world experience and scientific expertise.
The path to pandemic prevention runs not only through our hospitals and laboratories, but also through the world’s ecosystems, our farms, food markets, and veterinary clinics. Ultimately, the global health community must recognise that animal health is public health and that by enhancing animal health systems today, we can reduce the risks and impacts of tomorrow’s pandemics.
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