Global Public Health and Transboundary Animal Diseases: Issues and Options, Approaches and Concerns

Global Public Health and Transboundary Animal Diseases: Issues and Options, Approaches and Concerns

Editor

FAO ;

Descripción

Transboundary animal diseases will continue to emerge around the globe, with human-to-human spread potential, and multiple associated costs to societies and governments. These emerging threats can be addressed and reduced through the application of holistic and proactive disease risk management approaches that build on disease intelligence, multidisciplinary collaborations, public-private partnerships, international commitments, and scientific progress. Although a focus on biosecurity measures a long the production and marketing chain have proved beneficial so far, there is need to broaden measures geared to increase awareness among at-risk populations and targeted educational campaigns at vulnerable communities with the goal of changing, or at least influencing, the demeanours, habits and behaviours of people in such a way that the risks of disease contraction and transmission are decreased. For instance, the United States and the European Union are addressing the emergence and intensi fication of emerging biological threats across diverse ecological landscapes through identification and early tackling of critical disease drivers and risk factors. A key aspect of the approaches proposed is that they rely on working with economic actors and that they aims to develop with them sets of safe practices in production, processing, transportation, marketing and handling that are seen as coherent, applicable, practical, and in line with the realities in the ground. Further issues that need to be considered are cost-effectiveness, conflicts of interests, and sustainability.