(Council on Foreign Relations)
Challenges and Proposed Reforms
Zoonotic diseases, naturally transmissible between humans and animals, have posed a growing public health threat for decades. However, existing institutional arrangements have fallen short. The wide-ranging, large-scale, and costly effects of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the value of addressing those weaknesses in global governance.
Introduction: The Increasing Threat From Zoonotic Diseases
Zoonotic diseases, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a disease or infection naturally transmissible between humans and animals, have posed a growing public health threat since the late twentieth century. Zoonotic diseases are classified as either endemic (always present in place and time), epidemic (sporadic in timing and geographic distribution), or emerging and reemerging (newly appearing in a population, or, having existed previously, rapidly increasing in incidence or geographical range). An estimated 60 percent of known infectious diseases and up to 75 percent of new or emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are zoonotic in origin. Each year, zoonoses are responsible for 2.5 billion cases of human illness and 2.7 million human deaths worldwide.