Animal Diseases: Future Pandemics

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, there is a very large number of initiatives. I emphasise our international efforts to reverse the underlying causes of spillover infections from animals to humans, including biodiversity loss and the risk from the illegal wildlife trade. Using the UK’s G7 presidency, we have committed to doing more by establishing the International Zoonoses Community of Experts, by creating the centre for pandemic preparedness and conducting a one health intelligence scoping study to ensure that the systems work better together to identify future threats.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, in 2016 a woman in rural Thailand spotted a cow frothing at the mouth. She snapped a few photos, reported it on the “one health” disease detection app and local authorities stepped in. They limited the spread of foot and mouth to just three cows, averting millions in potential losses. This app is now expanding across Asia and Africa, supported by Dame Sally Davies’s Trinity Challenge. This demonstrates that ever more global health data by itself is just not enough; it is deriving actionable insights from that data that matters, and that needs dedicated analytics tech at scale. What steps is the Minister taking to find and scale the “one health” surveillance tech that we need to prevent future pathogenic risk?

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend puts it extremely well. It is exactly that kind of intervention at the front line that can nip infections in the bud, but it is only through international collaboration that we can really tackle the threat of zoonotic infection. The concept of zoonotic tech is not one that I had previously come across, but I will take it away from this debate and have a good look at what more we could do to support it.