Celebrating a New Century of Animal Health

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) General Session is always a significant date on the calendar for the animal health sector, but this year is especially momentous.

First off, I’d like to congratulate Emmanuelle Soubeyran, who was selected to succeed Dr. Monique Eloit as Director General. I also pay tribute to Dr. Eloit, who has steered World Organisation for Animal Health through the transition to its current iteration, and who has been at the helm during a complex period for both human and animal health.

I’m also happy to be among colleagues in Paris this week celebrating the 100th anniversary of this important agency, originally formed to tackle rinderpest, a devastating viral infection responsible for the loss of millions of livestock worldwide.

The eradication of the disease in 2011 was a crowning triumph for WOAH (then OIE) and other UN agencies, saving hundreds of billions of dollars.

But this week isn’t just a time for reflection and celebration. It’s also a moment to look ahead.

From the days of rinderpest, the animal health sector looks quite different. WOAH has grown from 28 members in 1924 to 183 members today, representing a stronger and more unified front from which to navigate the challenges of the next century. And the election of Dr. Soubeyran this week also marks an incoming new era of animal health leadership.

Global animal health challenges have also evolved, and with the ongoing avian influenza outbreak, we’re seeing in real-time the significant impact that animal diseases can have on animal welfare, trade, food security, and agricultural livelihoods in our highly connected world. This connectivity is the fundamental principle of One Health. Recent research has even quantified the unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions generated by disease-related losses.

But animal medicine has also made significant gains over the past 100 years. New vaccine technologies are emerging to tackle highly damaging livestock diseases like avian influenza, African swine fever and Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), which is the next global target for eradication.

Veterinary tools like vaccines are essential not just for protecting animal health but also for safeguarding human health and the environment. One manifestation of this is antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a One Health threat that results in drug-resistant diseases affecting both people and animals.

The latest update from WOAH on the use of antibiotics in animal healthcare shows a decline in markets where preventative veterinary medicine is well-established and accessible. This coincides with an industry commitment, coordinated by HealthforAnimals, in which the animal health sector invested more than $6 billion in R&D and brought more than 70 new vaccines to market. But more efforts are needed to improve the availability of preventative tools in low-income countries, where antibiotic use is on the rise.

This week, we enter a new century for animal health and with it, a new century for One Health. Global cooperation has never been more important for navigating shared challenges, and I join the General Session with cautious optimism for impactful collaboration, dialogue and partnership in the years ahead.