GRF 2nd One Health Summit 2013: Presentation by Peter Daniels, CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Science

1. Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases –
Strengthening Surveillance Systems
Peter Daniels
Deputy Director, Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Geelong, Australia
CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Science
Presentation for Plenary Session V, 2nd GRF One Health
Summit 2013, Davos, Switzerland, 17- 20 November, 2013

2. What should be the Future?
A Glimpse of the purpose of this surveillance?
Is it too aspirational to suggest that
Where animals are farmed to meet the needs of
society, an informed society will require that the
farming of these animals will not result in a
health threat to people
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 2

3. The Role Call of Emerging Infectious
Diseases Problems - and “Near Misses”
•
•
•
•
•
Nipah Virus in Pigs in Malaysia ... 295 (120)
Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 ... 630 (375)
Ebola-Reston in pigs in the Philippines several (0)
Pandemic H1N1 2009 globally .... ongoing
Variant H3N2 in North American pigs ... Several
hundred infections
• Avian influenza A(H7N9) in China ... 134 (43)
(Just examples where intensively farmed animals
have been a significant factor)

4. The Chatham House
Centre on Global Health Security
Project title: Tensions between Human and
Animal Health
Reviewing current policies and collaboration between the human,
animal and trade sectors to identify possible obstacles and
solutions
Often identification of an infectious agent occurs in
humans after human-to-human spread has begun, rather
than in the animal from which it comes, and
opportunities for control in animals and prevention of
human infection are lost
Chatham House (2010) Shifting from Emergency Response to
Prevention of Pandemic Disease Threats at Source

5. Infections are transmitted among animals aided by
human value chain behaviours
Hence a holistic (One health?)
understanding is the basis of
managing the risks of animal disease
But the understanding is needed by each
society as whole: Farmers, traders, advisors,
industry managers, regulators, consumers
And the people at the critical control
points have to CARE enough to want to
manage the risk– to do it!
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 5

6. Early recognition of new threats gives better
prospects for their eradication
“The concept of emerging threats must be integrated into
National Animal Health regulations and should be included
in the remit of the Veterinary Services”
But is it just the veterinary services? Can they be everywhere?
Farmers and farming enterprises are the front line
of society at the human animal interface!
The animal farming operation is the critical control
point in the value chain for surveillance
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 6

7. Delivery on our over-arching proposition, responding to
Chatham House type concerns,
requires a priori detection!
THE SOLUTION? THE VISION?
Managers of intensively farmed animals will know the
infection status of their enterprise, just as they know
the data of any production-related aspect of the
business, and communicate findings
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 7

8. Possible surveillance issues for producers
1. Who carries the cost?
• In a world where the public are represented by the
supermarkets, how can surveillance costs be
recovered?
1. What will be the response to findings?
• Regulatory issues affecting business continuity – the
first rule of surveillance:
Don’t do it unless you know what you are going to do
with the findings
• Public perception issues relating to profitability –
spontaneous market boycotts

9. A Glimpse of the Future?
Consequently there is a need for public-private
cooperation to deliver effective surveillance of animal
populations for emerging health threats:
Managing the Human Animal Interface
Monitoring the infection status of farmed animals
is a basic approach to disease risk management
“Understanding the complex dynamics that define the food animal
ecosystem of the 21st century is central to mitigating risks of
emerging zoonoses” (Leibler et al, 2009, Ecohealth)
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 9

10. Prerequisites for a new way of doing business
based on real time surveillance 1.
The human factor: farm owners and managers have to
be committed, the public has to understand the process
Foreseeable impediments:
• Costs – who pays, and how?
• Negative repercussions following detections – threats to
business continuity – need informed and predictable regulations
Immediate needs:
• Advocacy for partnership between public and producers
• Social science/behavioural science research along the value
chain
• Communications strategies - but with what messages?
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 10

11. Prerequisites for a new way of doing business
incorporating real time surveillance 2.
The technological challenges and opportunities
New detection technologies are becoming available
• The challenge is to choose among them
• Investigate how best to use them
• Validate them
Which approach will be most cost effective?
Pandemic Threats and Animal Agriculture Page 11

12. Alignment of the need for surveillance with Global
Megatrends - (Megachallenges)
1. Demographics – more people, more elderly (disease susceptible?)
2. Enabling technologies – novel opportunities
3. International interconnectedness – multinational food companies
4. Public debt – The challenge to reduce public debt while finding
new ways to deliver public services and outcomes
5. Resources stress (climate change, water, competing land uses) –
efficient agricultural resource management to guarantee food
6. Urbanization – 60% of people will live in cities – 37 megacities:
(intensification of human production with similar implications for
disease transmission),
a disconnect between biological understanding and the
immediate environment?
Future State 2030: The global megatrends shaping
governments, Mowat Centre, KPMG, 2013

13. Response strategies required to address
megachallenges
What needs to change?
• Behaviour among citizens – better informed to be part of the
solution to the management of impacts
• Value chain behaviours – supported by policies and regulations
• Systems for managing the international dimensions
How to change?
• Re-thinking of current paradigms
• Strategy development based on behavioural insights
• Adoption of new technologies
Future State 2030: The global megatrends shaping
governments, Mowat Centre, KPMG, 2013

14. Over to our panel.................
Thank you
CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory
Peter Daniels, Deputy Director
t +61 3 5227 5014
e peter.daniels@csiro.au
w www.csiro.au
CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Science