Digital platforms empower people to access and share data that can have a huge impact on animal health and livelihoods. Discover how data sharing is helping Latvia strengthen its preparedness against re-emerging diseases, and how countries in South America are developing systems to exchange electronic veterinary certifications. Making trade faster, more efficient, and more secure. 

In February 2026, a dog tested positive for rabies in Germany. The health authorities found that the dog entered the European Union in November 2025, through Latvia. They used an immediate notification on the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) to alert Santa Ansonska’s colleagues at the Division of Information Analysis and Emergency Response of the Food and Veterinary Service of Latvia. 

Santa Ansonska is a senior expert in the Animal Infectious Diseases Surveillance Division of the Department of Veterinary Surveillance. Right after being alerted of the case by her colleagues, she had to trace and verify the identification of each dog and cat in the shipment, using another digital platform called TRACES. This system supports the exchange of information on digital certifications required for the import and export of animals, animal products, and plants within, in and out of the European Union. It took two days for Ms. Ansonska to collect all the information needed, then she used the data available to send an official notification to the European Commission, to share the information with other countries that may be interested in the case. 

Moving animals from one country to another is a normal activity linked to trade. This concerns not only companion animals but also livestock. With any movement of animals comes the risk of spreading diseases from one area to another. This is where surveillance, integrated data systems, and digital tools become essential. The challenge is not the presence of a disease in a country, but having access to the right information at the right moment to respond effectively. As Santa Ansonska explains: 
“We should all fear the unknown. But if data are available quickly, we can be more proactive and not just react to the situation.” 

Get ready, use data 

Prevention and control do not just apply to rabies. Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease of livestock. It severely reduces productivity of animals and is regarded as a major threat by farmers and veterinarians around the world. As the 2026 State of the World’s Animal Health report points out, after years of absence, FMD has recently reappeared in Europe and is also spreading into new areas of Africa. The epidemiological dynamics of the disease around the world are concerning animal health experts, farmers and traders. But there are measures that can be taken to reduce risks. Timely and transparent reporting allows countries to take decisions based on science and evidence. This is especially important when Veterinary Services operate with limited budgets and must reallocate resources quickly to prevent larger crises.

As soon as we knew that FMD had reappeared in Europe, we had to take many actions to reallocate resources, reorganise our work, communicate the risk to the people concerned, and develop preventive measures before the disease could enter the country. Thanks to information systems such as ADIS and WAHIS, we have both the evidence that the disease is present in an area and the data we need to explain to decision makers why this is a threat for us.

Santa Ansonska, senior expert in the Animal Infectious Diseases Surveillance Division of the Department of Veterinary Surveillance, Latvia.

Letting data speak (to each other) 

The Animal Disease Information System (ADIS) and the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS) are two separate platforms created by the European Union and the World Organisation for Animal Health, respectively, to enable countries to share data on animal diseases present in their territory. The two systems were interconnected between 2024 and 2025, with Latvia playing a key role as a pilot country at the start of the process. The purpose of this interconnection was to ease the workload of animal health officers across the European Union and to facilitate information exchange at a global level: information is entered once, and users of both platforms can access it. 

The point with data is that they are useful only when they can be connected to each other and accessed easily, allowing professionals, researchers and other users to reuse them. The same applies to veterinary certificates, where the stakes of digitalisation are high. Today, many countries still produce paper veterinary certificates for the export of animals and animal products. The production and physical exchange of these documents takes time, is more prone to mistakes or alterations, and requires duplicate efforts to input and extract information for importers and exporters. 

Simon Padilla is an economic affairs officer at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Within the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) he has worked for many years on the multilateral exchange of electronic certificates, and like many people involved in data management, he notes that the main challenge is not creating the platform but producing information that can actually be used. 

“The technology behind an international system to exchange certificates is actually simple,” explains Simon Padilla. “The difficult part is making sure that the data is correct and reliable. And that is something that involves the entire certification process. You need to work with the inspectors and with the different business operators to ensure that everything functions properly. It requires a great deal of coordination to make sure that your certification system works well and that everyone who contributes to it is doing their job correctly.” 

As of today, the Inter American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is partnering with the United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC) to develop a new system for the exchange of electronic veterinary certificates. 

Funded by STDF, the project entered the platform development phase in February 2026, and WOAH standards for electronic veterinary certification will serve as the reference to create a common foundation for participating countries. 

How trade can enhance animal health 

Harmonisation is a major challenge for any country that wants to exchange safe products. Hundreds of different veterinary certificates exist, depending on the exported commodity, the destination market and the specific requirements that apply. The new project led by IICA aims to begin with a limited set of commodities traded within the Americas, in order to understand how countries can harmonise their certification needs and how this process could later be expanded at the global level. The ultimate purpose is to make people’s work easier and to strengthen relationships built through trade. In this context, animal health plays a central role and can benefit greatly from these efforts, as Simon Padilla explains: 

“If you want to digitise a veterinary certification system, you must revise the entire process. And when you do that, sometimes you identify bottlenecks or critical issues that must be addressed. So, by facilitating trade, you are also strengthening your animal health control system. We want to reduce paperwork, time and costs for international trade, while minimising errors, disruptions and fraud. And when you reduce the possibility of errors or fraud, you build trust and you facilitate trade, but at the same time you strengthen health protection. Both concepts are connected: animal health and trade. The aim is to make the whole process more efficient and safer for everybody, including importers, exporters, business operators, regulators and consumers. But farmers and veterinarians on the ground will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this project.” 

As governments and animal health sectors confront rising antimicrobial resistance (AMR), experts are increasingly calling for stronger investment in prevention, surveillance, Veterinary Services and animal health systems.

Among them is Dr. Laure Weber-Vintzel, Senior Livestock Specialist at the World Bank, who applies decades of veterinary practice to combat AMR. Reflecting on the recently launched State of the World’s Animal Health report, her insights capture the barriers, prevention, and solutions to lower antimicrobial use in livestock while raising productivity.

Can you briefly describe your journey into antimicrobial resistance (AMR)?

Dr. Laure Weber-Vintzel: I started as a veterinary practitioner, where responsible antimicrobial use was part of my everyday work. I then joined the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), which has long been strongly committed to tackling antimicrobial resistance. In my current World Bank role, I now operate at the nexus of sustainable livestock systems, animal health, and cross-sector collaboration, making AMR an important focus of my responsibilities.

From your experience, what are the main challenges farmers and veterinarians face with antimicrobial use? 

L. W.: First, access; access to quality veterinary medicinal products, including antimicrobials, and to basic veterinary services is a key challenge resulting in inappropriate use of over-the-counter products. In addition, as in most veterinary fields, poor investments in prevention are a key driver leading to disease outbreaks and a subsequent reliance to antimicrobials.

And of course, lack of awareness, food insecurity and poverty remain amongst the key AMR drivers. For example, in low-resource areas, even educated farmers cannot always afford discarding milk post-treatment, leading to milk with antibiotic residues being consumed.

There’s a belief that reducing antibiotic use harms productivity.
Is that true? 

L. W.: This isn’t that simple. It is poor animal health that harms productivity. So when antimicrobial use supports animal health, they will support productivity; but when antimicrobials are used irresponsibly, they do not support animal health and do harm productivity.  

Poor herd management and poor livestock health prompt diseases and antimicrobial dependence. Investments in hygiene, biosecurity, vaccination, nutrition, and feed yield healthier animals, higher productivity, and reduced antimicrobial needs, moving from reactive fixes to proactive strategies with multiple co-benefits. 

What are the biggest gaps in current AMR efforts? 

L. W.: The list is quite long and includes: AMR stewardship; prevention investments; stakeholders awareness; AMU data; strengthened Veterinary Services; stronger surveillance capacity.

Surveillance, for example, requires capacity from ground-level networks for advice to farmers, early detection and response, up to laboratory capacity to tailor treatments to pathogens.

More generally, AMR is still perceived as a medical / veterinary issue; while, it is a development threat with real macroeconomic consequences. This message has to be conveyed at the highest levels of governments. Preventing and reducing AMR protects livestock health, productivity and therefore livelihoods.

What about investments? Where should investments focus moving forward? 

L. W.: Any measures that improve animal health will reduce antimicrobial need and use and improve livestock productivity: whether that’s better biosecurity, hygiene, vaccination, or feed. I often use the analogy of a water leak: you can repaint over the damaged wall, but the water will keep seeping in because its source has not been addressed. What we need is a shift from fixing problems to preventing them: redirecting money, energy and resources upstream.

So, we must invest in systemic prevention, in surveillance, in veterinary medicine regulation and in behaviour change.

Indeed, communication and awareness-raising among farmers are essential. Disease prevention is far less costly than response, and this holds true for antimicrobial resistance too. Investing in something that may never materialise is a hard sell. But the evidence is there: farmers who invest in herd management, prevention and biosecurity, simply have healthier animals and need fewer antimicrobials.

What role should governments play in addressing AMR? 

L. W.: AMR is a systemic issue. Governments must take a holistic approach from investments in prevention to laboratory capacity building, access to quality medicines, veterinary oversight and intersectoral cooperation. Without such an approach, we will keep repairing leak damages, instead of fixing the source.

Governments also have a strong role to play in identifying development partners ready to support their efforts in addressing AMR. Among those is the World Bank Group, considering AMR not only as a veterinary or medical issue, but as a development threat requiring immediate action.

If you had one key message for global audiences on AMR, what would it be?

L. W.: Invest in prevention. Healthy animals, protected from pathogen exposure, need fewer antimicrobials, yield better productivity, and incur lower disease costs. Early investments cut antimicrobial use and resistance while boosting output. Upstream action, communication, and capacity building are a win-win for farmers, governments, and vets.

“The happiness of a Maasai is cattle,” says Nailogu Naikuni, smiling as she pats one of her cows on the back, roughing its hair. She’s walking through the pasture, clad in her teal and red traditional shuka, her neck, ears and crown draped in twinkling beads. “I’ve named them, so when I go milk a cow, I say, ‘come Noonkeye,’ and ‘I love you so much’.”

Naikuni is a Maasai farmer in Eng’amata Esinoni, a remote area of Kajiado County, in Kenya. She and her husband own a small homestead, where they’ve raised their 10 children – five boys and five girls – and generations of cows and goats.

Their livelihood as a family, she explains, depends on the well-being of their livestock and cattle, which they rear for milk, slaughter for meat, and sell on the market to pay for other necessities, including their children’s schooling fees. “The cows are our bank,” says Naikuni. “I have no other savings, the savings are the cattle.”
Naikuni trains her children on how to take care of the cattle when they’re off from school. “I tell them, ‘this is your world for your survival’,” she says.

But herds in rural homesteads throughout Africa, like Naikuni’s, can often be almost entirely wiped out by livestock diseases and fast-spreading diseases. Diseases like contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP), foot-and-mouth disease, lumpy skin disease and pestes des petits ruminants decimate herds over short periods of time. And while medication – and even preventative vaccines – for such diseases are constantly being developed, finetuned and deployed worldwide, such solutions are often too far removed from realities like Naikuni’s. They can be too inaccessible, and simply not made to cater to the needs of small-scale farmers who don’t run massive, industrialised farming operations, she says.

GALVmed’s work over the past decades has focused on changing that, attempting to bridge the gap between vaccine producers and the people who most need access to their products.

Because I have cows and goats, and I have my kids, I have a lot of things that show that I am Maasai.

Nailogu Naikuni, Maasai farmer

“There’s a lot of challenges for us Maasai at the moment, and many different diseases that make it hard for livestock keeping,” says Naikuni, who describes seeing her cattle and livestock die from sudden symptoms like diarrhoea, bloating and coughing, even overnight.

Worldwide, more than 20% of livestock production is lost to disease every year, costing producers a yearly $300bn (£220bn). Despite having been eradicated in the developed world, for instance, CBPP and contagious caprine pleuropneumonia are two of the most rampant ruminant diseases in Africa, killing thousands of cows and goats a year with a high fever and aggressive respiratory symptoms. Naikuni and her neighbours refer to it as ‘Olodua’, which can also decrease the milk productivity of livestock.

Foot-and-mouth disease is a similarly highly contagious viral disease that causes blisters and excessive salivation in hoofed animals. The disease significantly reduces milk production, and affects their ability to calve, which can have dramatic economic consequences. Lumpy skin disease kills cattle via pox-like symptoms, while the famed peste des petits ruminants (PPR), also known as the small ruminant plague, which impacts more than 300 million farming households each year and can infect up to 90% of a herd of goats if they’ve never been exposed to the disease before, and kill 70% of them. “If my cow gets sick, I will be sorely disturbed, and I won’t leave it alone,” says Naikuni. Over the years, it’s gotten easier. Since the arrival of a new veterinarian in town and the development of some new vaccines and medications, farmers like Naikuni have seen an improvement. “There are diseases that are not there now because of these vaccines and medicines,” says Naikuni.

We are no longer working in silos, in terms of disease control.

Melita Lein, Veterinarian

One of the region’s veterinarians, Melita Lein, was born and raised in Kajiado County in a farming community just like Naikuni’s. Growing up, though, he realised there were many more animals than veterinarians to look after them if they fell sick – and animals fell sick more and more often each year. The little veterinary help available was costly, sporadic, far away and didn’t take into account the cultural context of the Maasai or their language, leaving some local farmers feeling isolated. Studies from other parts of Africa suggest that up to 80% of small-scale livestock farmers lack adequate access to veterinary services or have never resorted to veterinarian services for their livestock.

Every day, on his small motorcycle, Lein travels from 10km to over 200km across rugged terrain to remote homesteads, sometimes even in heavy rain, visiting otherwise inaccessible farmers.

“Me sharing the culture with my own people, it has made it easier, explaining things to them,” says Lein. “The work is easier coming from someone who they know and feel is their own.” He often responds to emergency calls at night and does rounds of routine vaccinations during the day – providing vaccination programs tailored specifically to the needs of the livestock in Kajiado County, as a result of a lot of back and forth between vaccine producers, local government, veterinarians and small-scale farmers.
“We are no longer working in silos, in terms of disease control,” says Lein. The work done “bridges the gap between the farmer and them being able to access vaccination.”

Our goal is to expand access to vaccination at scale. When high levels of coverage are sustained over several years, it can break the cycle of infection and substantially reduce the burden of livestock disease.

Lois Muraguri, CEO at GALVmed

Connecting even the most isolated of farmers to the global vaccine production chain – and making the process simpler and locally sourced – has been at the forefront of GALVmed’s mission in Kenya and the bulk of sub-Saharan Africa. “We are working with companies and multinationals that have a bit more skin in the game, who are a bit closer to where the problem is,” says Lois Muraguri, GALVmed’s CEO, for veterinarians like Lein to bring to farmers like Naikuni in underdeveloped markets.
So far, they’ve reached 8.6 million annual customers and averted 48.8 million livestock deaths by 2025. And it’s not just about awareness of the vaccine’s existence and the ability to access it, though, says Muraguri. It is about ensuring a vaccine is the right fit local conditions.
“Sometimes you’re doing process improvement, or it could be tweaking something so that it’s specific for the context,” says Muraguri. “Our goal is not only about getting more products into the market, but it’s also about how that market then becomes sustainable.”
For foot-and-mouth disease, for instance, Muraguri’s team supports the development of vaccines that match East African strains specifically, not just global ones. The team also works with manufacturers to make small-volume vaccine packaging for farmers with just a few animals to inoculate, and they explore whether their Newcastle disease vaccines can be given as eye drops, which is simpler for smallholders than injections, or whether dosages can be added to the water the animals drink.

We design and deliver a body of work, and then our private sector approach ensures that this catalyses the market for ongoing growth and expansion, while we withdraw and move onto the next area of development.

Neil Gammon, Senior Director of funder relations and development at GALVmed

Since it’s often difficult for farmers to understand which diseases strike their animals, Muraguri’s team is also working on combination vaccines that bundle multiple protections into one jab, such as shots that protect livestock against the triad of the PPR, sheep and goat pox, and pleuropneumonia. Three of their multivalent vaccines have just achieved market authorisation.
GALVmed’s approaches have been successful so far, especially in India, where they helped tackle Newcastle disease in backyard chicken flocks. In the area where they intervened, flock sizes increased by 123% within 16 months of the vaccines being implemented.

“That poultry work, there’s quite a good story of our success,” says Neil Gammon, the organisation’s director of funder relations and development. “Now it’s about moving to cattle, sheep and goats. That’s where you still have very low vaccine uptake rates. And so that’s where our focus is going to.”

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Learn more about GalvMed

Over the last 18 years, GALVmed has become a highly efficient product development and commercialisation organisation that focuses partners on the specific needs of small-scale livestock producers in the global south. Their work actively contributes to better animal health, functioning livestock value chains and improved livelihoods at the last mile.

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John and Travis Grimes were born and raised in the small community of Dunbar, in North Carolina, US. From what started as a tobacco farm in the late 1800s, they are now the fourth generation of farmers on their land, caring for over 100,000 chickens.

“Everybody says it’s in your blood. I guess you can say I kinda always knew what I wanted to do,” says Travis, the younger of the two brothers, of his passion for farming.
For the first couple of years in the poultry business, the Grimes brothers readily resorted to antibiotics to prevent diseases and improve growth rates of their chicken, as did about 90% of poultry farms throughout the US at the turn of the century.

Across the poultry world, chicks used to receive antibiotics alongside their routine
vaccinations to prevent infectious pathogens from getting into the egg through the hole poked into the shell by the needle. They were also given antibiotics in their feed, throughout their entire lives, both to prevent common poultry diseases and to regulate their gut microbiome, boosting their body mass and improving growth efficiency.

But, after phasing out antibiotics, the team realised many of these processes were “crutches for good management”, says Stewart-Brown, rather than necessary tools.
Today, their farmers simply take additional mechanical steps to prevent bacteria from
entering the injection wound: they keep the eggs cleaner and mix their vaccines in
specialised, sanitised boots. With hindsight, antibiotics at the vaccination stage “was
probably the most significant overuse of antibiotics,” says Stewart-Brown.

To avoid common diseases throughout the chickens’ lives, such as coccidiosis, the farmers keep their flocks under closer scrutiny – better drinking water, tighter control of litter moisture and cleaner chicken houses – and they work to catch any early signs. “We had to kind of become coccidiosis experts and look at it in a much more holistic way,” says Stewart Brown.

In 2002, though, under the guidance of Perdue Farms – the franchise they raise chickens for – the Grimes brothers started phasing out antibiotics almost entirely. “It was a little hard first off when we first started,” says John, speaking on his initial fear and hesitation. “Apprehension and concern,” says Bruce Stewart-Brown, the chief science officer at Perdue Farms, of how some of his farmers initially reacted to halting routine antibiotic use. But a growing number of customers had been calling with concerns about antibiotic overuse nationwide. “They’re buying our chicken, so they should have a say,” says Stewart-Brown. If there was an alternative way to raise chickens, his team would find it.

To keep the chicken eating enough, Stewart-Brown’s team removed irritants from the
chicken’s feed and switched to an all-vegetable diet replete with probiotics and other non antibiotic tools that keep the chicks well-fed. Antibiotics are now only used to treat sick poultry if any disease does end up spreading throughout the flock. But because cutting back on antibiotics has required farmers to change many of their everyday poultry-raising habits, flocks are actually getting less sick than they used to, says Stewart-Brown. While about 3-5% of flocks required antibiotic treatment for disease in the early 2000s, says Stewart-Brown, the percentage of treated flocks is now less than 1%.

True judicious use of antibiotics should mean therapy only, not routine prevention or growth promotion.

Bruce Stewart-Brown, Perdue Farms

But keeping their chicks antibiotic-free has been for more than just farming best practices.

It is one step further towards fighting antibiotic resistance, a top public health threat that contributes to nearly five million deaths each year. Many of the antibiotics used for poultry in the past were the same ones used in humans for everything from acne to pneumonia, such as tetracycline and sulfonamides, or gentamicin, used for severe infections such as meningitis and blood infections.

Introducing more of these antibiotics into the world – by feeding them to chickens, releasing their byproducts into the waste system, and exposing chicken farmers to them – gave diseases more and more chances to build resistance against them.
This is a real-world issue. Antibiotic resistance has increased in two-fifths of the bacterial diseases monitored by the World Health Organization. In recent years, more than 40% of infections with E. coli and over 55% of infections with K. pneumoniae – which causes pneumonia and UTIs – showed resistance to the antibiotics used to treat them. Overall, the World Bank estimates that the epidemic of antibacterial resistance could result in $1 trillion in additional healthcare costs by 2050.

New research suggests that even ionophore antibiotics – which make up more than a third of antibiotics used in US farming, but are not used in human medicine because they are thought to be irrelevant to humans – also boost resistance in some human diseases. “Some of these assumptions we’ve made about antibiotics like ionophores probably aren’t true,” says Alex Wong, a geneticist from Carleton University in Canada.
Wong discovered that when bacteria have the sets of genes that build resistance to
ionophores, they’re also very likely to carry the sets of genes that can do the same against human-important drugs. “By accident, [ionophores] also select for these other genes thatwe care about in humans,” says Wong, who has found over 10 such links between ionophore resistant genes and resistance genes in human pathogens.
Similar research from other teams has suggested that the risk might not be as large as it seems, since the animal strain and human strains of these bacteria are slightly different – so more studies are needed to really elucidate best practices moving forward, Wong suggests. “The short version is that we need to be very careful about how we’re treating our animals,” says Wong.

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The 93^rd General Session of the World Organisation for Animal Health has marked the revision of WOAH’s standard on trade and the creation of a whole new chapter on biosecurity. The decision was driven by requests from WOAH members to include information on biosecurity in the standards. Like all other standards designed by WOAH for Members to implement, the ones that dominated this year’s agenda are poised to have a positive impact on animal health and welfare worldwide. Among the areas where they bring wide-ranging benefits, the live bird market landscape, where infectious diseases like avian influenza may spread, stands out as a particularly vulnerable yet crucially central one. 

Understanding the issue through the lens of the commodity

Live bird markets have traditionally played a key role in southeast Asia and Western Africa. In some countries, they are the backbone of cities that rely on food-focused trade and tourism. In most of them, live bird markets ensure food security by providing access to affordable fresh produce and embody a stable source of income for the many vendors that populate this vibrant community space.  

Infectious animal diseases like avian influenza, however, have put these settings under significant strain, as they offer a breeding ground for the emergence and spread of harmful pathogens. When zoonotic diseases emerge, outbreaks affect poultry trade and cause loss of consumer confidence. Wet markets where live animals are sold and handled are often linked to the transmission of zoonotic diseases, as they can facilitate the movement of live animals that may carry pathogens. Interspecies mixing in wet markets further complicates the game, posing significant health and ecological risks.  

Too often, veterinary public health interventions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus have focused on tackling the disease strictly within the borders of the markets themselves. Measures have included banning the storage of birds overnight in markets, enforcing market ‘rest days’ and separating bird species in markets. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, several countries temporarily shut down their wet markets which stalled trade flaws and critical food supply chains. But this solution proved neither sustainable nor viable in the long term. It triggered unintended consequences, such as the emergence of unregulated black markets for animal products and the attribution of the pandemic to these cultural practices. The stigma now attached to “wet markets” has become heavily laden with negative connotations. 

By contrast, evidence shows that avian influenza control for pandemic prevention must start before poultry reaches wet markets. Indeed, measures focused on live bird markets only are unlikely to effectively reduce the exposure of market traders and shoppers to avian influenza risk if not compounded by ad hoc interventions along the supply chain. Pandemic prevention strategies must therefore target chicken farmers and transporters in countries where the virus is endemic to reduce the number of infected chickens introduced into markets. 

Shaping the future of live poultry markets and beyond  

Various studies have identified the main risks associated with these settings. Markets selling live animals pose the greatest risks to human health and biodiversity due to their pathogenic load – especially those involving wild animals, which are intimately connected to emerging infectious diseases. Factors in combination, such as the presence of live animals, including those presenting a high risk of diseases, market size and cleanliness and hygienic practices could contribute to disease emergence. 

Given the complex nature of infectious disease risks, policymakers should not focus solely on markets when mitigating future outbreaks. Targeted, science-informed, and risk-based interventions applied upstream in the supply chain as well as in cross-border movements of birds can make bird markets safer without bringing local economies to the brink of collapse. 

Poor biosecurity and unregulated trade are part of the problem as they can exacerbate disease risks. This is why the revision of WOAH’s Code and the inclusion of a whole new chapter on biosecurity during this year’s General Session mark a step towards a healthier, disease-free animal populations. When it comes to live bird markets, animals are sourced domestically. Yet, regardless of where they are sourced, it is important to always implement effective biosecurity from the farm of origin to the market. 

Being the cornerstone of animal health programmes, biosecurity should be implemented to prevent and control diseases in populations. Together with the recent recommendations on border inspection posts and quarantine centres to support effective implementation of measures and procedures applicable to the transit, import and export of commodities, these approaches reduce the introduction of infection to populations and support trade continuity.  

Targeted One Health interventions 

Besides standards, stakeholder collaboration needs to the put into practice in this complex context. The One Health approach aims to prevent zoonotic diseases by addressing risks at their source, such as in wet markets, through multidisciplinary collaboration among public health experts, veterinarians and environmental specialists to ensure safe food practices and effective regulation of outlets where animals and food are sold. One Health solutions could include infrastructure improvements, regular cleaning and “rest days” to interrupt viral circulation, vendor-centric training programmes on hygiene and infection prevention, monitoring and certification systems that reward compliance rather than penalise trade.  

This combination of approaches can help achieve a broader, important end-goal: resilient, safe bird markets that sustain livelihoods while protecting against the looming threat of avian influenza. Targeted interventions and application of standards, not blanket bans, offer a pragmatic path toward safer animal trade practices. Members are invited to diligently implement and adapt WOAH’s standards to their legislation to make sure that the disease risk is mitigated today – and everyone’s health is protected tomorrow. 

 

Veterinarians in Colombia travel long distances by boat along the Amazon River to reach Indigenous communities. There, they train people in animal management practices, basic biosecurity measures and the recognition and reporting of disease symptoms to authorities. Colombia’s experience shows that training community members as part of an early warning system can extend the reach of animal health services into even the most remote areas through low-cost, community-based workforce models. 

Indigenous communities in Colombia, in the Amazonas department, have organised their productive systems around the concept of the chagra for centuries. Technically, a chagra is an area of polyculture in which staple foods such as plantains, cassava, fruits, medicinal plants, and aromatic herbs are produced in an integrated way. In this same space, animal production is also carried out, including backyard poultry, small-scale pig farming, and fish ponds.

Beyond its productive function, the chagra holds important cultural value, closely linked to the preservation of community heritage and traditional knowledge. While men usually engage in hunting and other external productive activities, women are generally responsible for working in the chagra. They gather, cultivate, harvest, and prepare food, thereby passing on techniques, ecological knowledge, and cultural practices from one generation to the next. 

Monitoring the health status of animals and crops within the chagra is a priority for the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA, Colombian agricultural and livestock institute), the national authority responsible for plant and animal health in Colombia. Currently, two veterinarians and three technicians support the animal and plant health extension programme in the Amazonas department, a territory of 110,000 square kilometers, approximately the size of Bulgaria or Guatemala. 

To address the major logistical challenges posed by this vast and remote territory, ICA veterinarians have trained 26 people from different chagras in the department to recognise the clinical signs of the most common animal diseases. These trained community members, known as sensores (sensors), perform tasks similar to those of community animal health workers in other parts of the world, particular in disease detection and the connected effort to build an early warning system. Their work strengthens local surveillance capacity, enabling faster reporting and response to potential health threats in Indigenous territories. 

We trained the sensores so they could identify signs of disease and notify us. Before our intervention, people were not accustomed to implementing preventive animal management practices: there was no deworming or proper infrastructure, which resulted in high mortality rates. Through training in biosecurity, antimicrobial resistance, and disease prevention, the community now recognises risks such as rabies and salmonellosis.

Yenny Soledad Infante Rivera, ICA Amazonas regional manager.

“In addition, since the Amazon River is affected by mercury contamination, several fish species are no longer safe for consumption. Therefore, we also support the development of safer fish production systems, allowing communities to raise their own fish in ponds under better sanitary conditions.”, adds Yenny Soledad Infante Rivera.

As the example of fish production illustrates, producing food in the Amazon rainforest is far from simple. Although many communities could benefit from introducing new techniques and improved breeds of poultry into their chagras, this also presents significant challenges. Jairo Eusebio Cachique Hernández, one of the two ICA veterinarians who regularly visits Indigenous communities for training and surveillance, often refers to the case of laying hens. These birds are usually transported by boat deep into the rainforest and, once there, must quickly adapt to completely new environmental and sanitary conditions. 

“We observed that these specialised breeds showed numerous respiratory problems,” explains Mr. Cachique Hernández. “Although we routinely test for avian influenza and Newcastle disease in the chagras, we have never detected either. On the other hand, the chickens were not protected at night and were directly exposed to the rainforest’s atmospheric changes, where temperatures can drop sharply from 40°C to 19°C within a few hours at certain times of the year. These fluctuations create considerable stress in the animals, not to mention their exposure to wild birds and the range of viruses they naturally carry. Once we worked with the community to build simple shelters, the situation improved. The application of basic biosecurity measures, such as routine cleaning and disinfection, also made a significant difference”.

What ICA veterinarians do in the Amazonas department goes beyond introducing new practices or raising awareness about animal health in the chagras. The 26 trained sensors in the department are part of a national network of more than 5,000 people across Colombia who strengthen the community-based early warning system. Their role is to notify ICA of clinical signs compatible with diseases under official control or surveillance, thus reinforcing surveillance capacity in remote areas of the country. 

This collaboration, still requiring sustained investment and resources, has the potential to protect the health of the animals on which Indigenous communities and the entire Colombian livestock sector depend. As Yenny Soledad Infante Rivera notes: 
“Working with Indigenous communities requires mutual respect and knowledge exchange. At ICA, we provide information and support, but we also learn from them. It is not always easy, but they have survived for centuries in extremely complex environments. It is an exchange of knowledge, culture, and techniques”. 

This is one of the case studies included in the 2026 State of the World’s Animal Health report. Read more in the full report. 

Young people entering science today, will be on the front line of tomorrow’s health crises. As emerging diseases increasingly arise from the interactions between humans, animals and the environment, the next generation of scientists must be equipped with interdisciplinary skills to anticipate and prevent future outbreaks. 

Training these young professionals to think across sectors — health, ecology, and virology — has become a strategic priority in global health preparedness. It is within this perspective that the ZOOSURSY Students Club was created, placing young scientists at the heart of efforts to better understand and prevent emerging viral zoonoses. 

Building on this vision, the ZOOSURSY project, funded by the European Union through the Global Gateway, works to improve preparedness for emerging viral zoonoses, such as avian influenza, through a One Health approach. The project brings together academic and research partners including IRD, Cirad, Helmholtz Institute for One Health, Institut Pasteur, and the University of Helsinki.

Young scientists are at the core of this effort. On 14 January 2026, nineteen master’s and doctoral students involved in ZOOSURSY met for the first time as part of the newly created Students Club. Coming from Gabon, Kenya, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Congo and the Central African Republic, and linked to universities in Africa, Europe and North America, they represent a new generation of future professionals working on zoonotic disease dynamics. 

While their individual thesis topics differ, their scientific focus converges on a common challenge: understanding how viruses circulate at the human–animal–environment interface. Beyond virology and epidemiology, their work also draws on disciplines such as ecology and social sciences to better capture the human, environmental and behavioural factors that shape emergence and transmission. Through the Students Club, participants learn from one another, broadening their scope and fostering innovative, cross-sectoral thinking.  

The Students Club was created as a space for dialogue and peer learning. It aims to foster regular exchanges between students and the wider consortium, encourage peer-to-peer feedback on scientific projects and host talks by experienced scientists whose work aligns with student interests. 

Together, these efforts aim to enhance preparedness for future outbreaks — a cornerstone of the One Health vision promoted by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and its partners. 

Beyond scientific results, the initiative addresses another key challenge in global health: building and sustaining zoonotic diseases management capacity in regions most affected by zoonotic threats. Through ZOOSURSY, students benefit from hands-on training, fieldwork opportunities, mentorship and access to international and local networks, including collaborations with institutions and bringing expertise to national Institutions. These experiences help translate theory into practice, while strengthening local and regional expertise. 

Meetings will be held every two months, complemented by semester-based mentoring sessions focused on both scientific and professional development. A highlight of this network will be the first ZOOSURSY Symposium, planned for October 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. By then, students are expected to present their projects to consortium partners, building on relationships formed through the club and contributing directly to the project’s scientific output. 

In a field where preparedness depends on sustained investment in people as much as in data, initiatives like the ZOOSURSY Students Club play a strategic role. They help ensure that research on emerging zoonoses is not only produced, but embedded within a growing community of scientists equipped to respond to future health threats. 

By placing young scientists at the centre of its One Health approach, the EU-funded ZOOSURSY project highlights a simple principle: strengthening global readiness for tomorrow’s outbreaks begins with empowering those who will be studying them today.

At dawn, markets begin to stir. Trucks arrive from distant villages. Farmers guide sheep and goats through narrow streets. Buyers inspect animals, negotiate prices and prepare for the journey home. For many families, this moment represents hope: an animal sold can mean school fees paid, food on the table or money set aside for the next season. For those choosing a sheep or goat for a celebration, it is also a source of pride and recognition within the community. 

Around the world, an estimated 330 million people depend on small ruminants – sheep and goats – for their livelihoods and food security. These animals are central to family farming systems, particularly in marginalised communities. They provide meat and milk, but also wool and leather for clothing and manure for crops. In many regions, women play a key role in their care and management, making small ruminant farming an important pathway to financial independence and family wellbeing. 

Yet behind this familiar scene lies a less visible reality. The movement of animals, essential as it is for trade and survival, also creates opportunities for disease to spread. The risk of moving sheep and goats is rarely obvious to buyers or sellers, but it shapes the health of flocks and the stability of markets. 

A journey that connects farms and markets

Sheep and goats are among the most mobile domestic animals in the world. Herders move them in search of pasture and water through seasonal migrations known as transhumance, travel long distances to reach markets, and trade them across regions and borders. Each journey brings animals from different herds into close contact. A healthy-looking sheep may have picked up an infection days earlier without showing signs. Stress from transport, crowding and changes in feed can weaken its defences and make it more likely to pass an illness on to others.

In some countries, surveys of livestock markets have shown just how intense these movements can be, with thousands of animals changing hands over short periods of time. When animals move quickly and often, it becomes difficult to know where they came from or where they will go next. If disease appears, tracing its path can be like trying to follow footprints in sand.

Certain infections take particular advantage of this mobility. Peste des petits ruminants, a highly contagious disease of sheep and goats, can spread rapidly along trade routes and wipe out entire flocks. Foot and mouth disease affects all cloven-hoofed animals and can disrupt both local markets and international trade, for which sheep and goats can be silent carriers. Some diseases, like brucellosis, can also affect humans. For households that depend on only a few animals, the loss of a flock can mean the loss of income, food and a sense of security.

These impacts extend beyond individual farmers. When outbreaks occur, they can destabilise supply chains, raise food prices and place heavy demands on Veterinary Services. The consequences are felt not only in rural areas but also in towns and cities where people rely on steady access to animal products.

Protecting livelihoods by protecting animal health 

For this reason, animal health experts increasingly focus on understanding how and why animals move. Mapping routes between farms, markets and grazing areas helps identify where risks are highest. Monitoring animal health at key gathering points makes it easier to detect problems early. Vaccination and basic animal identification and traceability systems can further reduce the chances that disease will travel unnoticed.

The World Organisation for Animal Health and its partners have highlighted these links between movement and disease spread, not to discourage trade or long-standing practices, but to make them safer by facilitating animal movement control. The aim is not to stop animals from moving, but to ensure that their journeys do not carry hidden threats.

Small ruminants are more than commodities. They are savings accounts on four legs, sources of nourishment and symbols of resilience for millions of families. They support women’s economic participation and help households weather difficult times. Their value is measured not only in money, but in stability and dignity.

When a sheep or goat begins a journey, it carries more than its own weight. It carries the hopes of the household that raised it and, sometimes, the risk of disease if safeguards are not in place. Understanding this connection is not just a technical matter. It is about protecting livelihoods, strengthening food systems and ensuring that the movement of animals remains a source of opportunity rather than vulnerability.

Achieving this requires shared responsibility. Farmers, traders and Veterinary Services all play a role in keeping animals healthy as they move — by exchanging information, applying basic biosecurity measures and responding quickly when risks emerge. By paying attention to how animals travel, and by supporting practices that keep them healthy along the way, everyone can help ensure that these journeys remain a path to prosperity instead of a pathway for disease.

This year’s World Wildlife Day, we celebrate the awe-inspiring functionality and beauty of the green that surrounds us. Plants and vegetation are far from being a simple backdrop to the rest of humanity: they sustain life on Earth. But just like animals and humans, they are being affected by world-changing events, including the climate crisis and other man-made activities. This makes it urgent for One Health practitioners to envision and enable a future where ecosystem interdependence is enhanced by shifted mindsets, ecological strategies and renewed efforts to ensure everyone’s health.


From feeding terrestrial animals to providing a critical infrastructure to underwater natural beings, plants play a key role in the global health ecosystem, from land to sea. They clean air and water, build soil and support other living things.  It’s not a one-way street though – right next door, a whole world of thriving animals quietly enables plants to flourish. 

Although largely unseen, animals – including wildlife – are crucial for the wellbeing of plants. From pollination to seed dispersal and nutrient cycling, they play a vital role in sustaining the plant ecosystem as we know it, providing services that are essential for its survival. The mutually beneficial relationship between the animal and plant worlds has created a web of self-reinforcing living networks unlike any other. When one thrives, so does the other.

Some species, such as great apes, have even discovered how to use plants for their own healing. Humans have long observed wild animals throughout this process and then adapted these behaviors into human medicine. This highlights how a healthy animal-plant-human chain can make the world a better, healthier place. But as Earth’s environments become increasingly interconnected, there are threats to plant ecosystems that have become impossible to ignore.

Protecting plants under water 

Plants are everywhere around us, even in places we don’t get to see or experience every day. Just think about the vibrant ecosystem of plants living underwater. Aquatic plants play a crucial role in maintaining the health of aquatic ecosystems, including aquatic animals and wildlife. Their tasks include supplying reliable food source, producing oxygen, improving water quality and providing habitat for a wide range of fish and wildlife. They even offer safe areas for a variety of species, offering shelter for fish and invertebrates.

This close-tight relationship highlights how the health of aquatic plant communities is crucial for supporting resilient aquatic animal populations. It’s essential for these invaluable plant resources to survive in the wild. But this symbiotic experience also means that aquatic species may easily be affected by the recurrent issue of toxicity affecting plants. Whenever there is a lot of rain, the biological composition of plants, in fact, can change. Some species then get easily affected by a neurotoxin produced by algae. Among the more susceptible species are fish, aquatic invertebrates such as snails and zoo plankton. Interestingly, some underwater plants can be affected by agricultural runoff.

Many of these valuable underwater plants face further threats from habitat destruction, overharvesting, climate change and unregulated or illegal trade. Raising awareness, strengthening regulations and ensuring the sustainability of harvesting and trade have become important action points. “Conservation of aquatic plants is a global priority. This is also a powerful reminder that we need to stick to a One Health approach, as we know plant health is one of the pillars of ecosystems’ integrity”, says Dr Mwansa Songe, Member of the WOAH Working Group on Wildlife. “Everything needs to be addressed as a single system. It has become crucial for players in the policy field to take the lead with a holistic approach. This is the only way to prevent and mitigate threats at their source.”

A toxic legacy: how lead poisoning threatens global health  

Changes in the weather are not the only factor that has been endangering plant health. Another phenomenon is putting plants under threat, with severe health and ecological impacts: lead poisoning. Primarily caused by ingestion of lead from ammunition and fishing tackle, lead pollution can have catastrophic consequences for the plant-wildlife chain.

The high density of lead has made it the ammunition of choice for centuries despite its toxicity. The impacts of lead shot ingestion and poisoning in wildlife have been observed since the nineteenth century. When plants grown in contaminated soil, such as near shooting ranges or wherever hunters discharge high volumes of shot, they absorb high concentrations of lead in their tissues. This heavy metal exposure causes reduced growth, with studies on important agricultural forage species like Festuca arundinacea, Trifolium pratense, and Medicago sativa showing up to 30% lower shoot heights and shorter roots. Photosynthetic pigments also decline, impairing vitality, while lead transfers up the food chain – from plants to herbivores and then predators – risking widespread ecological toxicity. Lead ammunition deposited on agricultural land creates two pathways of exposure for animals and humans. Firstly, the heavy metal can be absorbed by plants used for human consumption as well as by grazing ruminants delivering milk and meat, and secondly, livestock can directly ingest lead shot or bullet fragments, so contaminating milk, meat and eggs and poisoning the animals.

Every year, millions of birds are poisoned to death following ingestion of lead shot mistaking them for food items or grit used in their gizzards to grind up food. Scavengers like eagles and vultures, often our most threatened species, are dying across the world from lead shot or bullet fragments left in hunted game. These birds inadvertently swallow the fragments in prey and carrion, then their strong stomach acid dissolves the lead pieces, letting it flood into their blood. Scavenging mammals are exposed to these bullet fragments too and can be poisoned, but mortality is higher in birds due to the level of exposure and their unique digestion system.

Lead poisoning also causes a range of sub-lethal impacts – birds’ ability to fly is affected, causing collisions with infrastructure such as power cables and a compromised immune system for wild species.

We have to think about health holistically, an individual with a compromised immune system is at far greater risk of infectious disease. In times of an unprecedented highly pathogenic avian influenza pandemic we do not need less and less resilient wildlife populations, not only for their own sakes but for risks to other sectors too.

Dr Ruth Cromie, WWT Research Fellow.

Beyond the toxic legacy created by contamination of soils by the 10,000s of tonnes of lead ammunition released every year, and the wildlife and livestock affected, people are at risk too.

This really is a One Health problem. Recognising that lead affects nearly every system in the human body, firing such a highly toxic substance into your food is an extraordinary thing to do.

Dr Ruth Cromie, WWT Research Fellow.

“The potent damaging effect of lead on the developing brain is very well understood. Maybe hunters do not mind risking increased risks of blood pressure and kidney disease but when they are feeding lead-killed game meat to their children they are putting them at serious risk of neurological harm.” adds Cromie. For others buying game meat, the lack of regulatory maximum lead levels leaves consumers exposed and in a regulatory fog.

Despite the known risks, solving the problems has proved hard because of a combination of cultural factors and industry resistance. Non-toxic alternatives do exist, but without regulation to embed their use, change is pitifully slow. Cromie knows that in the future we will look back and wonder why we did not prevent the use of lead ammunition sooner but is still hopeful that policy makers will follow the evidence, recognise the One Health benefits to be gained from using non-toxic substitutes and put health protection first. Along with regulation, there are needs for further research and development and improved access to alternatives that respect our shared ecosystems – especially in underserved areas – and resources to help hunters switch to non-lead tools. This will also translate into a substantial reduction in wildlife mortality and associated welfare benefits that will only have positive effects on everyone’s health.

From pharmaceuticals seeping into waterways to veterinary drugs disrupting ecosystems and heavy metals poisoning animals across the globe, The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) recognises the challenges that wildlife and our interconnected ecosystem faces. Yet, solutions are possible through One Health. Managing these major global health risks cannot be done in isolation or by one sector alone. The approach goes beyond single diseases and calls for the full cooperation of the animal, human, plant and environment health sectors. In the light of this, WOAH continues to bring its expertise in animal health and welfare to diverse, much-needed multi-sectoral partnerships.

Over the past year, gender in the veterinary profession has become a prominent topic within WOAH. Side events – including one held during the 92nd General Session – have showcased Members’ strong commitment to joining the global conversation and advancing gender equality. 

Worldwide, veterinary medicine has experienced what many call ‘feminisation’, with women now representing roughly half of all practitioners and nearly 80% of veterinary students. This rapid shift has brought renewed focus to issues such as leadership representation, workforce sustainability and the future of Veterinary Services. At the same time, declining numbers of men entering the profession raise questions about diversity and the sector’s ability to meet essential functions over the long term. 

But breaking the cycle isn’t enough. While more women are now entering veterinary schools and joining the profession, the trend does not automatically translate into fair representation across leadership roles, field assignments, pay or decision-making authority. In fact, structural inequalities persist. Leadership positions, practice ownership and field roles are still disproportionately taken up by men. By contrast, women are often concentrated in laboratory, pet-care, administrative or support functions, where influence and authority are relatively limited. To compound the challenge, the veterinary pay gap remains stubbornly real. Women veterinarians are still paid less than men, especially among new graduates and top earners – a pattern driven by outdated workplace structures and deep-rooted gender stereotypes. 

Declining male participation in the workforce adds a unique layer of complexity, reshaping how the profession operates. According to recent data, every 1% increase in women in a veterinary college student body, approximately 1.7 fewer men apply the following year. While the causes remain to be clarified, the implications are nothing short of obvious: chronic shortages in rural and physically demanding roles in the field, where women face limitations due to safety concerns and are offered poor benefits. 

“We’ve got entire industries, professions, and workforces that were designed by men,” comments E. Scott Osborne, President of “Through Women’s Eyes”. “Whether it be the physical environment, the corporate hierarchy, the times they work, the way people advance, the criteria they’re promoted on – it was all designed by men. Until literally the last half century, men created systems to meet the needs, goals, priorities, and schedules of men, often during a time when many had a wife who did not work outside the home. We now live in a world where many women are in the labour force, but those systems have largely remained unchanged.” 

In other words, growing female participation also highlights the system’s failure to adapt to changes in the workforce. Without addressing structural and cultural barriers, the combined effect of “feminisation” and declining male enrolment risks producing the outright opposite outcome: weakening service coverage and disrupting the continuity of essential veterinary functions.

Emerging priorities for gender equality 

WOAH has engaged with Members during recent institutional events to identify their priorities related to workforce feminisation and to inform how a future organisational gender strategy could help drive change.

Key challenges identified include: 

In light of these challenges, Members have overwhelmingly expressed a desire for WOAH to actively support gender-responsive strategies that make the community more inclusive. They also want WOAH to collect and analyse workforce data and provide guidance on using these insights to shape policies that are equitable and sustainable. 

Looking ahead: a shared vision for gender-responsive Veterinary Services

Recent gender assessment studies in Africa and Asia and the Pacific commissioned by WOAH have shed light on underrepresented female leadership and imbalanced distribution of field assignments.  

Findings also show that organisational culture, access to training and supportive leadership are critical to shaping gender-responsive workforce policies in the sector – from targeted leadership development programs to quota systems that ensure balanced representation. 

While these assessments provide useful information, they also reveal a gap: Veterinary Services need a stronger culture of using data to guide workforce policies. Systematically collecting, analysing and applying evidence is a missing piece that can help close the final gap and achieve sustainable gender equality. This analytical, data-driven approach is reinforced in the recommendations from the Africa Continental Conference on Veterinary Workforce Development.  

But when it comes to collecting actionable data, the Veterinary Services aren’t alone. In fact, veterinary schools can be valuable partners in pursuing this task.  Gender-disaggregated data from across schools can help understand how gender norms, expectations and perceptions of the profession shape students’ choices before they even enter the workforce. This is especially important as veterinary studies record falling of male enrolments, likely influenced by career prospects, remuneration and societal norms that link animal care with nurturing roles women are traditionally assigned to. 

One thing is clearer than ever: strengthening analytical capacity is not just a technical requirement, but a strategic investment that gives policymakers the information they need to advance progress within the animal health sector. 

As the veterinary profession becomes increasingly female, understanding the full nuance of this change is essential. It raises important questions about the future of the field: How do workplace structures distribute opportunity and allow for equitable leadership? Could the decline in male applicants be contributing to workforce shortages in remote areas, where women are still underrepresented? And how are shifting gender dynamics influencing professional identity, career aspiration, and the overall appeal of veterinary work?

Exploring these questions through an analytical approach grounded in data allows WOAH and its Members to move beyond numerical trends and understand the mechanisms underlying workforce organisation, distribution, and resilience.

With this complexity taken into account, WOAH and its Members are working together to build Veterinary Services that are equitable, future-proof, and better positioned to protect animal and public health. WOAH is committed to using insights collected through Member consultations and gender assessment studies to inform a comprehensive gender strategy that elevates promising practices, strengthens global evidence, and ensures that the veterinary profession remains vibrant, inclusive and attractive for all.