PREZODE foresees a world where the risk of new zoonotic pandemics is reduced, land management practices are sustainable, while food security, healthy diets and livelihoods are preserved through the coordination of research programs, the sharing of knowledge and the deployment of efficient and relevant operational policies.
Vision and mission
The COVID-19 crisis has shown the absence of an efficient early warning system, limited collaboration between stakeholders, and a major gap between scientific knowledge and policymaking. Optimal action relies on strategies co-designed by local actors on the frontline, along with scientists, decision-makers and stakeholders involved in zoonosis risk management.
1. A common framework to foster collaboration and impact
PREZODE proposes a scientific framework for implementing and conducting research and operational projects, and for developing and coordinating surveillance systems to prevent zoonotic risks, with a global objective of maximizing their impact. To reach this goal, the initiative is building on joint programs between members, on collaboration with international partners and on securing funding to ensure that the approach is sustainable.
2. Strengthening Knowledge
PREZODE is developing a collaborative platform for sharing knowledge from past, current, and future projects and for capitalizing on activities in different regions of the world. It aims to strengthen and integrate knowledge, innovation, capacity building and operational actions seeking to jointly reduce risk and rapidly detect the emergence of zoonotic diseases in countries, regions and globally.
3. A resource center
PREZODE intends to be a resource center to provide decision makers with tools and information to enable evidence-based public policies. PREZODE will highlight local examples of ecosystem management strategies to reduce zoonotic emergence risks and encourage economic sustainability.
By 2030, PREZODE will have helped to reduce the upward trend of emerging zoonoses through preventive actions designed jointly with all relevant stakeholders.
Common values
The PREZODE members:
- Recognize that 75% of emerging infectious diseases are of zoonotic origin and that emerging disease events are accelerating, largely due to human impacts on nature.
- Recognize the complexity of the relationships existing between land use, food systems and environmental, human, and animal health, and specifically the need to unravel the link between biodiversity pressures and emerging infectious diseases.
- Note that preparedness strategies are not primarily designed to prevent pandemics.
- Emphasize the need to mitigate the risks of emergence of zoonotic diseases.
- Emphasize the need to prevent pandemics before they emerge, while ensuring food and nutritional security, adapting to climate change, preserving biodiversity and natural resources, and alleviating poverty.
- Emphasize the need to improve knowledge and to develop reliable tools, by involving all the interested and concerned stakeholders.
- Recognize the need for efficient early warning systems for detection and rapid actions to counteract the emergence from local to global scale.
- Emphasize the need for robust and participatory emergence risk monitoring, supported by research and involving all stakeholders, research and field actors, policymakers, and public society through a “One Health” approach.
- Highlight the role of local communities and of all environmental, animal, and human health stakeholders in reducing the risks of infectious disease emergence through their awareness and commitment.
- Call for concerted action and efficient use of existing financial mechanisms and resources to scale up and integrate research, innovation, capacity building and operational actions seeking to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence.