Recent disease outbreaks have exposed vulnerabilities in animal health systems around the world. In many cases, policymakers still lack consistent evidence on the scale and economic consequences of animal disease. Europe has many of the institutions needed to close this gap, but the bloc needs to make animal health a strategic investment rather than a cost incurred after an outbreak.
The reappearance of ‘new world screwworm’ in the United States has sent shockwaves throughout the livestock sector. In central Africa, a rare strain of Ebola has re-emerged. At the same time, hantavirus remains an ongoing threat, months after turning up on a cruise ship – a reminder that diseases travel as freely as we do.
Each outbreak has different origins and transmission pathways, but there is a common factor: a pathogen transmitting from animals to people. Around three-quarters of new human diseases start in animals. Yet they could be stopped at source before they decimate food systems and jump across species, if policymakers were able to properly value animal health.
The value of animal health has evolved alongside the role of domesticated animals in society. As animal agriculture has industrialized, the price of meat, milk and eggs has declined. And where horses were once so important that animal health training was based on equine medicine, spending on healthcare for pigs, sheep, and poultry in the United States amounts to just a few dollars a year per animal. Meanwhile, healthcare spending for dogs can reach $620 a year per pet.
The central issue is that health agencies and authorities are much better placed to respond to individual outbreaks than to measure the full burden of poor animal health. Yet understanding that burden would allow policymakers to make better-informed decisions about where to strengthen veterinary defenses and where prevention could have the greatest impact.
Measuring the costs of animal diseases
Knowing which diseases exist is only part of the challenge. Policymakers also need to understand what those diseases cost, who bears those costs, which interventions can prevent them, and where investment could have the greatest return.
This is the key argument of the Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) program, which is developing ways to measure the broader economic and health losses associated with animal disease. This is not as simple as adding up the costs attributed to individual diseases. In many cases, diseases overlap, with one illness responsible for secondary infections and additional susceptibility.
The GBADs program has developed an “Animal Health Loss Envelope” to compare current production with a theoretical healthy state while accounting for spending on disease control. This approach helps avoid double-counting when several diseases contribute to the same losses.
The distinction matters. A GBADs study of common diseases and health conditions in UK dairy cattle estimated annual losses of £404 per cow, equivalent to about £60,000 for a typical herd. But crucially, the diseases with the highest costs were not necessarily those for which control would deliver the greatest benefits.
Understanding risk factors can similarly help guide more targeted interventions and prevent a disease outbreak from becoming a wider health crisis. In 2024, peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a devastating disease of sheep and goats, reached Romania for the first time, surfacing on its Black Sea coast. The coast is also home to Midia, one of the continent’s busiest ports for live animal exports.
However, the true burden of animal disease across Europe has not been fully quantified in ways that can consistently inform EU-wide policy and strengthen defenses. Closing that gap will require sustained investment in observation and research.
The animal health resourcing shortfall
Globally, animal health receives as little as 0.6% of health spending, which equates to roughly $60 billion a year. By comparison, global military spending recently reached a record $2.9 trillion.
Human resources, such as veterinarians and para-veterinarians, are needed in the field to carry out ongoing research and respond to endemic and epidemic diseases. Yet there is a global shortage. Appropriate laboratory infrastructure is also a prerequisite to any disease control program, but it requires ongoing funding.
Investment is also needed at the farm level, where cases of disease can quickly spread and become outbreaks. Infrastructure such as adequate animal handling systems is essential for allowing a herd to be vaccinated quickly and safely. More creative financing, such as targeted subsidies or compensation structured to reward early action, would pay for itself many times over through stronger food security and public health resilience. Linking animal health stewardship with public support should be explored as a way to promote more sustainable livestock production.
The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) estimates that bringing every country’s veterinary services up to standard would cost around $2.3 billion a year – less than 0.1% of what COVID-19 cost the global economy in a single year. Modest spending to boost veterinary standards could help stabilize food prices for consumers, protect farmers’ livelihoods, and reduce the risk of the next disease spilling over into human populations.
What should policymakers do to support animal health?
There are clear precedents for getting this right, and Europe has a strong record of containing disease. When foot and mouth disease struck the UK in 2001, an underprepared response led to more than 6 million animals being culled and a bill of around £8 billion. When it appeared again in 2007, after investment in surveillance and planning, it was quickly contained at a cost of just £47 million.
The lesson is that governments cannot make rational choices about prevention if they do not know what poor animal health is costing them. Europe has the scientific expertise, regulatory structures and veterinary institutions to build this evidence base. The next step is to connect them: epidemiology with economics, surveillance with production data, veterinary services with finance, and research with policy. This needs to be underpinned with investment into data.
Animal health is already part of Europe’s food security, trade, and public health infrastructure. The policy challenge is to measure its value before the next outbreak forces governments to pay the price of discovering it.
