Emerging infectious diseases: opportunities at the human-animal-environment interface.

Infectious diseases pose a serious threat to the wellbeing of both human and animal populations. Here, in the fifth in Veterinary Record's series of articles promoting One Health, Mathew Dixon, Osman Dar and David Heymann examine lessons learned from previous disease outbreaks; they also consider current threats and how a better understanding of underlying risk factors could stimulate a paradigm shift from treatment to prevention of zoonotic infectious diseases.