New year new beginning, but familiar challenges and age old solutions

摘要

When I was much younger I used to wonder what farming would be like in 2000 and try to imagine the changes that would have taken place. Oneidea that particularly interested me was that most infectious disease might be a thing of the past both in human and veterinary medicine. Yet 15 yearsafter my once dreamt of date we still struggle with many diseases, and in some cases they are more of a problem now than they were 40 years ago. Of course there have been major global successes; one thinks of Small Pox and Rinderpest, as well as regionaland national eradication of production animal diseases such as BVD, IBR, Swine Fever, FMD, Brucella abortus and many others. However, there have also been a good number of examples of new and emerging diseases of our livestock. Of particular concern tosociety are the new and emerging zoonotic diseases including for example highly pathogenic avian influenza, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Lassa fever, Nipah virus and SARS to name but a few. Within human medicine, and to a lesser extent veterinary medicine, we also now face the growing threat of increasing antimicrobial resistance. We now live in a fast moving world where rapid intercontinental travel is the norm, and pathogen transfer between human, animal or plant populations can occur at an alarming rate.