Disease outbreaks and pandemics cause tremendous illness, mortality, and economic harm. A highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus has spread around the globe in the last four years and, like other influenzas, has the potential to cause a pandemic much worse than COVID-19. Emerging infectious diseases (EID) pose an imminent threat to global health and economicorder. Experts are calling for the urgent enactment of new policies to integrate agency action toprevent, prepare for, and identify emerging health threats and to provide funding to prevent andeffectively respond to a potential pandemic using a One Health approach. This approach shouldbe used to proactively coordinate and guide comprehensive disease outbreak prevention and preparedness, surveillance for early EID detection in people and animals, robust diseaseresponse and vaccination capacity, and ongoing education and communications strategies at thestate, national, and global levels.
