White paper: Emerging and Re-emerging Animal Diseases - Overcoming Barriers to Disease Control

IFAH commissioned global analysis and advisory firm Oxford Analytica, who were supported by a group of independent experts in animal health, to examine three dominant barriers to effective disease control: Barriers to research and development; Barriers to commercialisation; and Barriers to the use of veterinary medicines.

The white paper was commissioned as a launch point for wider collaborative discussions with international stakeholders on what future efforts would be required to overcome barriers that limit our ability to control emerging and re-emerging diseases.

Key findings include:

• Barriers to R&D: high costs to develop medicines and profit margins. Lack of veterinary experts to carry out diagnostic controls creates inefficiencies in responding to an outbreak. Existing surveillance systems tend to be passive or reactive. The constantly changing nature of virus strains hinders vaccines development.
• Barriers to bringing veterinary medicines to market: overly burdensome regulations, divergent legislative frameworks, lack of streamlined approval processes cause delays and increase costs.
• Barriers to the use of veterinary medicines: their distribution and availability face logistical problems, lack of government support and lack of veterinary capacity on the ground as well as infrastructure.