What is it about?
A new global study reveals low vaccination coverage in food animals for high risk diseases and opportunities to increase livestock vaccination to maximize the benefits of expanded coverage, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Improving livestock vaccination boosts farm productivity and incomes by reducing disease, improving food safety, and expanding access to markets for trade. It also supports climate and public health goals by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and reducing reliance on antibiotics as global demand for animal-based foods including meat, eggs, and dairy continues to grow.
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Photo by Anthony Roberts on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Animal vaccination offers significant benefits in animal health and food security, food safety, climate change mitigation, and trade, but remains an underused tool outside of high-income countries. This new study provides the first global estimates and analysis of vaccination coverage and incidence for 104 livestock diseases among cattle, poultry, and pigs in 203 countries and territories from 2005 to 2025. The study provides in-depth evaluations of livestock diseases most widely targeted by official vaccination programs in 2025 and predicts where the greatest reductions in global livestock disease burden would come from prioritizing the expansion of vaccination efforts in certain animals.
Perspectives
The gaps in animal vaccination rates between economically well off and disadvantaged countries are huge. This is unacceptable but also offers a great opportunity to tackle antibiotic resistance, pandemic spillovers, methane emissions from livestock, and poverty cost-effectively with a single set of interventions.
Ramanan Laxminarayan
One Health Trust
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Global vaccination coverage and disease incidence in cattle, pigs, and poultry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2515557122.
You can read the full text:
Resources
A global One Health Trust study reveals low vaccination coverage in food animals for high risk diseases
Find a presentation on a new global study revealing low vaccination coverage in food animals for high risk diseases.
An OHT global study reveals low vaccination coverage in food animals for high risk diseases
Video on a One Health Trust study out in PNAS about coverage in food animals for high risk diseases.
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