Veterinary Public Health and zoonoses

COVID19 is the latest zoonotic disease to become a global pandemic. The presentation will primarily address the questions: how do zoonotic diseases emerge and what can we do to prevent them?

• The presentation will initially provide an introduction to the concepts of Veterinary Public Health, One Health, emerging zoonotic diseases and other relevant terms.
• Which are the most prevalent zoonotic diseases?
• What is the impact of zoonotic diseases to societies and global health?
• Which are the main drivers of the emergence of zoonoses?.
• Examples of viral zoonoses will be presented focusing on the molecular virology of the pathogens i.e. influenza A viruses.
• How can we prevent zoonotic diseases?

Efstathios (Stathis) Giotis is a lecturer in molecular virology at the University of Essex, School of Life Sciences and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London. He graduated from the School of veterinary medicine (Aristotle University, Greece) in 2001, received his MSc in biotechnology in 2002 and PhD in molecular microbiology in 2006 from the Ulster and Illinois State Universities. Since 2009, he worked at the Roslin Institute, the Royal Veterinary College London, the University of Copenhagen in the field of pathogen-host interactions. Common denominators of his research have been the focus on the interface of human-animal health and the use of transcriptomics technologies to answer scientific questions. Since joining Imperial College London in 2012, his research has moved to focus on the host cell-entry and transmission of zoonotic avian and bat-borne viruses such as avian/bat influenza A viruses, using big data techniques and bioinformatics. While he remains affiliated with Imperial College London, he joined the University of Essex in 2020 in order to establish his own group with a primary focus on SARS-CoV-2.