At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, animal disease labs across the country stepped up to expand testing capacity, and they could play a role in preventing the next pandemic.

Spillover events, animal diseases that jump to humans, happen often, according to Jonna Mazet, a professor of epidemiology and disease ecology at the University of California - Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

Most novel diseases and emerging infections that jump from one species to another don’t cause big problems, she says. In other cases, it can be bad.

“Sometimes things jump into livestock, cook along and then jump into people or affect our food supply so devastatingly that it has a major effect on food security,” Mazet says.

As a global director for a project called PREDICT, which detected emerging diseases around the world that could transfer from animals to humans, she says her team detected hundreds of novel coronaviruses and other viruses.

Diseases can be devastating for the agricultural sector too. One example is African swine fever, which is affecting producers in China.

“You planned your business to have so many born, so many get raised up and go to market,” says

Corinne Bromfield is a swine extension veterinarian at the University of Missouri. “And if they get born, but they don't go to market, or even if they don't get born, because there's sows aborting, all of that is really detrimental to the industry.”

Read the full article about animal disease labs by Seth Bodine at Harvest Public Media.