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In 2050, our world will face 13 million of deaths due to infectious diseases.  Noteworthy efforts to fight against the top killers, i.e., AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, starts bearing fruits. However, recent emerging events including for instance Ebola in West Africa, Zika in Brazil, avian flu everywhere in the world and the H1N1 pandemic flu in 2009, remind us that further vigilance is indispensable.

In the past 10 years, 60% of emerging infectious diseases originated from animals. Increased international transport and trade, climate change, intensive farming and deforestation have dramatically changed our ecosystem to favor emergence of new pathogens as well as reemergence of old threats. Large use of antibiotics has contributed to one of the top threats nowadays: antibiotic resistance.

To meet the challenge that infectious diseases now represent at a global level, the world health organizations WHO, OIE and FAO put forward the “One Health” concept, which advocates integrated research at the human-animal-environment interface.  Our research institutes including INSERM and INRA have also endorsed this concept in the research we carry on to fight against infectious diseases.