The World Health Organization (WHO) and three other international bodies have formed a team of experts to help develop a global plan to prevent the spread of diseases from animals to humans, the WHO announced this week.
The One Health High-Level Expert Panel was an initiative launched by France and Germany late last year and held its inaugural meeting earlier in May.
It will advise the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Program on developing “risk assessment and surveillance frameworks” and establish “good practices to prevent and prepare for zoonotic outbreaks.”
The panel will also consider potential transmission risks in food production and distribution, urbanization and the construction of infrastructure, international travel and trade and activities that lead to biodiversity loss and climate change, the WHO said in a press release.
The panel will publish its first recommendations later this year.
The global COVID-19 pandemic is widely believed to have originated in wildlife trading networks in China and southeast Asia. The closest known genetic match of the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 has been found in bats.
A few years ago Canadians were asked to be vigilant about a flu-like virus that spread to and from pigs and people. It also spread from chickens to pigs.
