“Prevent the next pandemic and be prepared”: EU agencies’ call on climate and health risks

Brussels – Recognising the link between human, animal, and environmental health, to act simultaneously and in a coordinated manner across all sectors on what can result from climate change: this is the call coming from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Environment Agency (EEA), and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) on the occasion of “One Health Day”, the global day to raise awareness of the correlation between health and the world around us, which is celebrated on 3 November. The European task force, represented by the five EU agencies, wants to be as clear as possible: we must work together to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the next pandemic. 

The starting assumption, which cannot be ignored, is that there is only one health and there is only one planet. How the latter is managed and preserved determines the former. This makes it “essential to address the risks” at the intersection of human, animal, plant, and environmental health. Not least because the ECDC, EMA, EFSA, EEA, and ECHA emphasise that these risks are “intensified by climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity.” Not only that: changes in land use, complex food chains, increased trade and demand, and increased travel also affect human health. 

The phenomenon is already underway, reports the European Task Force. “The summer of 2025 was the hottest on record,” and before that was the summer of 2024. By the beginning of September this year, nearly one million hectares of land had been lost to fires in the EU. Again, marine heatwaves affected almost the entire Mediterranean, amplifying ecological stress and threatening livelihoods. Record-breaking heat and extended mosquito seasons have fuelled the spread of diseases such as West Nile virus, chikungunya, and dengue, also driving an increase in heat-related diseases, food-borne infections, and pressure on health systems, particularly for vulnerable populations. At the same time, animal diseases such as bluetongue, lumpy skin disease, and avian influenza threaten animal welfare and food security.

https://www.eunews.it/en/2024/03/11/dengue-malaria-nile-fever-climate-change-hurting-europe/ 

In the face of all this, the European Task Force joins the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to call for “improved global and regional coordination” so that actions, policies, and strategies are aligned and not scattered and uneven initiatives. In this sense, the suggestion is to “make cross-sectoral collaboration the norm” to integrate the “One Health” model into national and sub-national governance systems through legislation, sustainable financing, and enabling policy frameworks. Environmental policy and land management as a means to protect health requires “joint decision-making, data sharing, and cross-sectoral monitoring”, insist the European and global agencies. 

For national governments and supra-national organisations, the other suggestion is therefore to “ensure that policy choices are based on scientific evidence and provide benefits for human, animal and environmental health, while demonstrating the added value achieved through coordination and collaboration.” So far, the European Observatory for the Prevention of Health Risks from Climate Change has not brought about the paradigm shift now being called for with renewed vigour, and it is hoped that it will do more than it has so far.