An international initiative to prevent the outbreak of zoonotic pandemics, while ensuring food security and means of subsistence for the poorest communities.

75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans come from animals. The risk of these diseases moving from animals to humans increases with the destruction of biodiversity.

As the Covid-19 crisis has shown, when a pandemic is triggered, it is already too late to act. By improving the prevention of disease emergence, it is possible to influence the spread of the disease and potentially limit its impact. The prevention of emerging infectious diseases in humans is not prioritized, despite the fact it costs infinitely less than the management of epidemics and their consequences.

To address this need, PREZODE is developing international research and development programmes to prevent and detect the emergence of zoonotic diseases, especially those linked to the destruction of natural habitats, trade in wildlife and food production systems. The initiative intentionally emphasizes prevention and co-development. This helps ensure that sustainable solutions form part of a “one health” strategy, given the inextricable links between human, animal and environmental health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the close links between human, animal and environmental health, in a context of increased human-livestock-wildlife contacts and ecosystems degradation.
FAO recognizes the importance of environmental sustainability as a key determinant of a long term ‘One Health for All’. We need to do more ‘all for one health’.
FAO DIRECTOR-GENERAL, DR QU DONGYU, OPS 11 january 2021

PREZODE aims to :

  • Improve knowledge of the determinants and mechanisms of zoonosis emergence.
  • Identify how to design socio-ecosystems to limit emergence.
  • Strengthen the understanding of risks by stakeholders implementing actions to prevent them.
  • Ensure that these stakeholders implement the appropriate health and biodiversity policies they have co-developed.
  • Develop a real-time One Health monitoring system based on user needs and operational at all levels.
  • Strengthen the sience-society-policy dialogue to enable the building of relevant health management strategies.
For more information

France launched the PREZODE initiative, in consultation with several European and multilateral partners.

Three years after its launch at the One Planet Summit in January 2021, the PREZODE initiative now includes 25 governments and nearly 210 institutions worldwide.

The international organizations most directly concerned (FAO, OIE, WHO, UNEP), as well as the key stakeholders in this field (World Bank, EcoHealth Alliance, WCS, The One Health Lancet Commission, GALVmed and others) have welcomed this initiative.

In the first months of 2022, the two first research and operational programs have been launched. The governance of PREZODE was also set up.

The One Forest Summit in 2023 provided an opportunity for a progress report on the initiative in a dynamic of synchronization of programs between sustainable ecosystem management and "One Health" prevention strategies following COP15.

At COP28 in Dubai, PREZODE invited participating countries and organizations to sign a joint declaration calling for the implementation of sustainable systems as part of the "One Health" initiative to address the negative impacts of climate change on human, animal and environmental health.

It is now entering a new phase of its international deployment to continue its expansion by joining new governments and raising new funding.

https://prezode.org/

Contact: pierre.dussort@inrae.fr and initiative-prezode@inrae.fr