Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they taking to improve international cooperation on identifying (1) animal viruses, and (2) zoonotic diseases.

The UK continues to play a leading role in this critical area as part of our wider work to tackle zoonotic diseases, which are responsible for around 60% of all human diseases and 75% of all new and emerging infectious diseases.

Our world-class laboratories provide capability-building services to global partners, integrating technical support, surveillance, risk analysis and epidemiology expertise, and participating in numerous global research and development networks which offer a multi-disciplinary approach for early detection systems and emergency preparedness and response coordination, with a focus on animal and zoonotic diseases.

We also support country and regional partners through our Official Development Assistance budget to strengthen global health systems, so they are better able to prepare for, prevent, detect, and respond to a wide range of health threats, including zoonotic diseases. This includes our International Health Regulations Strengthening Project and Tackling Deadly Disease in Africa Programme, which take a One Health approach, emphasising the connections between human, animal, plant, and environmental health.

The UK is committed to ensuring that a One Health approach is also embedded in a strengthened global health security architecture. This includes work that the World Health Organisation is now leading to progress a UK G7 initiative to develop an International Pathogen Surveillance Network, as well as support for the work of the multidisciplinary One Health High Level Expert Panel, which is led by the Tripartite and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the proposed Berlin Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.

During our G7 Presidency, we launched the One Health Intelligence Scoping Study, again led by the Tripartite and UNEP, and funded initially by the UK, which aims to improve global health resilience and early warning through building and integration of health intelligence systems. We also launched the International Zoonoses Community of Experts, which will facilitate greater international collaboration to strengthen zoonotic surveillance and risk assessment capacity, and hosted a very successful G7 Chief Vets Wildlife Meeting, which developed our collective knowledge of best practice in critical aspects of wildlife surveillance, intelligence sharing and risk communication.

This year, the UK is chairing the Global Health Security Agenda Zoonotic Disease Action Package (ZDAP), where we will work collaboratively with ZDAP member countries and organisations to strengthen our ability to prepare for and prevent, detect, respond and recover from zoonotic diseases.

In the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, the Government committed to reviewing and reinforcing the cross-government approach to biological security, including a refresh of the 2018 strategy, recognising the need to re-evaluate the risk landscape and consider evolving priorities since COVID-19, and in view of rapid advances in science and technology. We recently issued a Call for Evidence (copy attached to this answer) to help inform the refresh. By engaging with the public, experts, and stakeholders beyond government, we will ensure that some of the best minds in the UK and beyond continue to provide rich insight and challenge.