The importance of cross sectorial inclusive working is crucial to ensure the right diagnostics systems are in place to help detect 99% of all viral threats within the next 10 years before they spill over into humans and livestock according to leading scientists from Queen’s University Belfast, Public Health England, DAERA and the Food Standards Agency.

As part of the recent virtual annual Agri Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) Outlook Science conference a number of top Professors discussed the key learnings from the Covid 19 pandemic and in particular the interactions between animal and human health with 60% of human pathogens present in domestic animals or wildlife.

“There are currently over 1.6m unknown virus species within our ecosystems and more viruses are emerging continually as human behaviour changes. Our research and data show that early diagnostics are vital for outbreak response and while vaccination is the most cost effective was to reduce disease burden, we need to be prepared now for future outbreaks to minimise spill over and transmission.”

The full conference and individual sessions can be viewed on the AFBI YouTube Channel

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