The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) have announced plans to increase collaboration on animal health issues in the face of new challenges from antibiotic resistance and climate change.

On Sunday, the two organisations said they would work together on animal disease and food safety issues. The new areas of collaboration include work to prevent and control foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever, rabies, zoonotic influenza and antimicrobial resistance.

In cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), FAO and OIE plan to focus on monitoring the responsible use of antimicrobial and pharmaceutical products; this announcement comes just days after experts in the UK published an article in the journal Nature, calling for immediate international action on antimicrobial resistance and stating that the risk from antibiotic resistance is equal to that posed by climate change.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva made the announcement in Paris. He said animal health was of "paramount importance" in the work of the Organization to eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. "We are committed to tackling high-impact animal diseases together with OIE, WHO and regional and national partners,” Graziano da Silva continued. 

During his speech in Paris, Graziano da Silva said climate change represents a growing threat for the future of animal health and its repercussions for global food security.

The FAO director warned that anthropogenic climate change could see pests and diseases moving into new areas, potentially spreading tropical diseases, which are "highly sensitive to climatic conditions" into new regions and affecting migratory patterns of birds that could harbour avian flu. In its most recent report, delivered earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of these and other threats to public and animal health.

FAO and OIE already have a number of joint initiatives including the FAO/OIE Crisis Management Centre – Animal Health, which provides rapid response during animal disease emergencies, and OFFLU, the network of expertise on animal influenza. The organizations have worked together on efforts to prevent, detect and control H5N1 bird flu, and eradicated the virus behind deadly cattle disease rinderpest in 2011.