PULLMAN, Wash.In the past six decades, diseases such as influenza, SARS and West Nile Virus that move from animal populations to humans (called zoonotic diseases) have caused more than 65 percent of all infectious disease outbreaks worldwide.
As reported in a recently released study from the National Academy of Sciences, the cost of these outbreaks in the last decade alone has been more than $200 billion.
The joint report from The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC), entitled Sustaining Global Surveillance and Response to Emerging Zoonotic Diseases, emphasized the importance of an integrated animal and human disease surveillance framework for very early detection of these diseases and mitigation of their impact on animals and humans.
“That is a core mission of the Washington State University School for Global Animal Health (SGAH) ,” explained Dr. Guy Palmer, endowed chair and director of the SGAH. “The SGAH was formed just for that purpose to explore ways of preventing disease at the animal human interface.”
Beginning some 18 months ago, the U.S. Agency for International Development commissioned the National Academies to convene an expert committee. Their charge was to provide consensus advice on the challenge of sustaining global surveillance and response to emerging zoonotic diseases. Among the experts tapped was Dr. Terry McElwain, professor in the School for Global Animal Health and executive director of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.
“The committee identified gaps in existing global disease surveillance, and reached consensus on how best to fill those gaps,” explained Dr. McElwain. “It is a complex problem that does not have simple solutions. But without a doubt the solutions will require a team effort that includes among others physicians, veterinarians, other health professionals, social scientists, wildlife biologists, economists, and policy makers.”
The group also made recommendations for policy and regulatory options, such as international agreements, and suggested possible mechanisms for sustainable funding of a global surveillance system.
