Three Global Animal Health Risks
Veterinarian shares global animal health concerns in animal protein production.
Globally, animal diseases cause 20% morbidity, but many high-impact diseases have the potential to be controlled and eradicated. Subhash Morzaria, veterinarian with the International Livestock Research Institute, said these diseases pose a significant threat to animal protein production and food security. He spoke in a breakout session of the 30th International Livestock Congress (ILC–USA) in Houston, Texas, March 5.
Global food security is a major issue, with 805 million people suffering from chronic malnutrition. More than 90% of total population growth will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the next 30 years, and most of the livestock population resides in the developing world, he said.
The three main types of health risks are chronic endemic diseases, high-impact infectious transboundary animal diseases (TAD) and high-impact TADs that spill over to humans. He explained that chronic endemic diseases are those you can’t see, like gastrointestinal parasites and vector-borne pathogens. High-impact infectious TADs include Rinderpest (cattle plague); peste des petite ruminants (PPR), or sheep and goat plague; and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), among others. High-impact TADs that spill over to humans include avian influenza, Nipah virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV).
These diseases pose both economic and human risks, and ultimately affect food security and human well-being. Economic ramifications are difficult to calculate, but he said the U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is estimated to have cost $3.5 billion, while FMD in the United Kingdom is estimated to have cost $25-$30 billion. The SARS outbreak in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada is estimated to have cost $30-$50 billion.
Investments in strengthening veterinary services and prevention would benefit the international community and provide high returns in increased production of animal protein, Morzaria said. Partnerships are necessary to control and eradicate diseases.
Global trade is beneficial to the world economy, but he grants that with it, pathogens can be spread more easily. International air travel has increased by about 5% each year, and large shipments of livestock now travel worldwide.
“Animals can be in any part of the world in shorter time than the incubation period of many diseases,” he pointed out.
Because of this, he said, disease intelligence and early detection, warning and response capacity is crucial. Hot-spot surveillance of these diseases will help stay on top of issues, as will appropriate policies regarding farming systems; value chains; live-animal markets; and interactions between wild animals, domestic animals and humans.
Organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) have global strategies in place on FMD and PPR, which he said include a structured and stage-wise approach for endemic countries, defining the epidemiology, strategic vaccination and monitoring and evaluation.
