Australia, explained.
Experts are worried that migratory birds may spread avian influenza around Australia (Auscape/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Scientific collaboration on health threats offers a new pathway for regional influence.
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One Health diplomacy: How Australia can lead regional disease preventionOne Health diplomacy: How Australia can lead regional disease prevention
The capacity of animals to breach political borders has long been acknowledged by spy agencies. The CIA reportedly used pigeons and ravens to document sites in the former Soviet Union. They also investigated whether they could place sensors on migratory birds to detect chemical weapons testing. Russia has a centre in the Crimea for combat dolphins reportedly trained to attack divers and plant mines on foreign ships. During the Gulf War, the US Navy reportedly deployed dolphins to support mine clearance teams. Tests have been done with bats fitted with explosive devices.
These animals do not just carry classified information and secrets across national borders. They have a capacity to carry diseases. Of the 30 new human pathogens that have emerged in the last three decades – including Covid-19, rabies and salmonella – 75 per cent of them came from animals. At the moment, Australia is particularly concerned by a global outbreak of high pathogenicity avian influenza, or H5 bird flu, which is spreading globally, impacting both poultry and wildlife everywhere except Australia and New Zealand. But experts are worried that migratory birds may spread the disease around Australia. Their ability to overcome political boundaries comes with more than one kind of risk. These disruptions, or moments of “zoonotic spillover”, are a reminder of the interdependence between people, plants, microbes, animals and their environments.
An alternative approach to global security, One Health focuses on cooperation to prevent and respond to shared ecological problems.
A new framework has been developed to deal with complex cross-boundary health issues. Initially an academic concept, the “One Health” framework gained global momentum after the 2020 Paris Peace Forum. Motivated by the need to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, various international bodies including the World Health Organisation launched the One Health High-Level Expert Panel. Their joint definition catalysed national and regional coordination across different political and institutional sectors such as public health, veterinary epidemiology, the environment, trade and even defence.
An alternative approach to global security, One Health focuses on cooperation to prevent and respond to shared ecological problems. It recognises that resilience requires not just a pristine state of good health within boundaries controlled by state sovereignty but the capacity to manage shared risks, encouraging regional cooperation over isolationist biosecurity. As the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) has identified, human health can be undermined by factors as diverse as environmental pollution, zoonoses, poorly resourced veterinary services, or lack of stability in agricultural systems. It offers an institutional strategy to mitigate emerging disease threats, improve regional relations, and strengthen food and health security.
The AviFluMap, a new H5 bird flu dashboard, has been developed to track migration patterns of wild birds (Source: AviFluMap)
The potential of One Health to act as a diplomatic lever is clear: scientific collaboration becomes the basis for international agreements on issues ranging from antimicrobial resistance to climate and food safety. Mechanisms, standards and bodies such as COVAX, the Codex Alimentarius, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports translate technical consensus into diplomatic capital. In politically sensitive areas, and in wildlife trade and transboundary surveillance, One Health offers shared metrics and depoliticised dialogue.
In a world marked by instability and competing sovereignties, the framework provides a justification for global governance and multilateral cooperation. An early success was the WHO Pandemic Agreement, adopted in May 2025. The accord established frameworks for equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics and affirmed Australia’s leadership in health equity and zoonotic surveillance. Australia’s scientific standing provides it with a means to take leadership in One Health diplomacy. The country’s interim Centre for Disease Control (iCDC), with a dedicated One Health Unit, will become a statutory agency in 2026. Other agencies, including ACIAR and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), will support surveillance, research, and regional coordination. Examples include the Research for One Health Systems Strengthening Program, which supports projects across six Indo-Pacific countries, and the Collaboration on One Health Economics Research for Systems, which analyses veterinary market structures in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, filling key policy gaps.
Pandemics such as Covid-19 have demonstrated the staggering costs of inaction on issues that fall outside Australia’s sovereign control.
Despite progress, there is scope for further innovation and partnership with business in Australia’s One Health approach. Technological, institutional, and diplomatic innovation are important pillars of opportunity identified by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel. Australia could establish regional incubators and consider mainstreaming this concept to get the attention of entrepreneurs and companies with funds, talent and interest in developing solutions tailored to the Indo-Pacific context. Together, these measures would align scientific expertise, diplomatic leadership, and development programming, enabling Australia not only to respond to future health crises more effectively, but also to shape the emerging global One Health architecture as a trusted and regionally embedded actor.
Pandemics such as Covid-19 have demonstrated the staggering costs of inaction on issues that fall outside Australia’s sovereign control. Prevention through integrated strategies is more cost-effective than crisis response. Indeed, the World Bank has positioned One Health as a high-yield investment in global health security and development, estimating an 86 per cent annual return on efforts to prevent zoonotic outbreaks and antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries.
More than a technical solution, or an intriguing novelty, this is a peace-building strategy grounded in cooperation across national, disciplinary, and species boundaries. Institutionalising Australia’s iCDC as a permanent centre for disease control offers the structural backbone for coordinating research, policy, and response. If successful, it will help shape not only pandemic preparedness but a broader architecture of health, ecology, and diplomacy for a volatile future.
About the author
Philippa Nicole Barr
Philippa Nicole Barr currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
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