Committed to stopping pandemics (Chinese Edition)

The lockdowns, the testing, the vaccinations, the loss of life and the threat to livelihoods — COVID-19 has changed the world as we know it. The pandemic has fundamentally altered our understanding of diseases and impressed upon the population at large the importance of integrating environmental, animal and human health for public health responses. Avoiding future pandemics begins with the timely detection and the monitoring of the emergence of disease outbreaks, which often originate in animals. The IAEA will step up its efforts to provide support to governments worldwide in using nuclear and related techniques to enhance global response preparedness. For over 60 years the IAEA, in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has worked to better understand and tackle transboundary animal diseases — including zoonotic diseases which could jump from animals to humans. The Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, the principal vehicle of this collaboration, not only enhances global food security through its animal health and production programme, but also, in turn, significantly contributes to saving people's lives. In this edition of the IAEA Bulletin, we show how the zoonotic disease work undertaken by our laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria, is making an impact around the world. From our role in addressing the Ebola outbreak in 2014, to the invaluable support provided to address the COVID-19 pandemic, the IAEA and the FAO have played an important technical role in tackling the biggest zoonotic outbreaks worldwide.