FAO: Improved disease prevention in animal health could save billions of dollars

One Health approach to more efficiently combat new pathogens is gaining strength

26-07-2010

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.

Emerging threats

These emerging threats are also related to increased urbanization and strongly growing urban demand for meat, milk and eggs. A rapid increase and intensification in poultry, production in East Asia translated into a five-fold increase in duck meat output between 1985 and 2000. In 2008, over 21 billion animals were produced for food globally, a figure expected to rise by fifty percent by 2020....

Source: Improved disease prevention in animal health could save billions of dollars