New zoonotic diseases cost $6.7 billion a year worldwide. If any one of these were to become a major pandemic it could kill millions of people and cost more than $1 trillion.

What to invest in?

• Invest in surveillance, diagnostics, vaccines and in research on transmission mechanisms and their mitigation
• Develop and implement stronger biosecurity measures
• Ensure full-cost financial accounting of the societal impacts of disease
• Expand scientific enquiry into the complex social, economic and ecological dimensions of emerging diseases, including zoonoses, to assess risks and develop interventions at the interface of the environment, animal health and human health
• Identify key drivers of emerging diseases in animal husbandry, both in industrialized agriculture (intensive husbandry systems) and smallholder production.
• Include proper accounting of biosecurity measures in production-driven animal husbandry/livestock production to the overall cost of One Health.
• Incentivize proven and under-used animal husbandry management, biosecurity and zoonotic disease control measures for industrial and disadvantaged smallholder farmers and herders (e.g. through the removal of subsidies and perverse incentives of industrialized agriculture), and develop practices that strengthen the health, opportunity and sustainability of diverse smallholder systems
• Improve cost-benefit analyses of emerging diseases prevention interventions to include full-cost accounting of societal impacts of disease (including the cost of unintended consequences of interventions) so as to optimize investments and reduce trade-offs. Ensure ongoing and well-resourced preparedness and response mechanisms
• Anticipate the risks of emerging new zoonotic diseases that increase in incidence or geographical range, and manage their effects on human health and wellbeing. This means disease risk foresight and readiness - risks are generally known even if the diseases are unknown