One Health approach to more efficiently combat new pathogens is gaining strength
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Governments could save billions of dollars by stepping up the prevention and control of high impact animal diseases, some of which pose a direct threat to human health, FAO said today.

Many other animal diseases have a negative impact on people's livelihoods. Pandemic influenza viruses H5N1 and H1N1, foot-and-mouth disease, Rift Valley fever, and rabies are among the more recent disease outbreaks.

Land use, ecological dynamics including climate change, and expanding trade and trade routes are all posing new challenges to animal disease prevention and control, the UN agency warned.

These emerging threats are also related to increased urbanization and strongly growing urban demand for meat, milk and eggs.

"We are expecting the costs to human, animal and plant health of these pathogens, and their overall economic costs, to rise substantially over the next decades" said Juan Lubroth, FAO's Chief Veterinary Officer.

In developing countries, high impact transboundary animal diseases pose a direct threat to the food security, nutrition and income of rural communities that are dependent on livestock.

The collective influenza virus gene pool currently circulating in humans, poultry, pigs and other animals is becoming more diverse with new strains of the virus across different hosts becoming increasingly common.

FAO, in partnership with the World Organisation for Animal Health and the World Health Organization has adopted a One Health strategy to more effectively detect and combat these new pathogens.

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