Prioritizing research for “One health - One world”

Please see Additional file 1 for translations of the abstract into the six official working languages of the United Nations.Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations noted in his address to the General Assembly on 21 September 2010, that “the least developed countries represent the poorest and most vulnerable segment of humanity. They remain at the epicentre of the developmental emergency.” Indeed, the current number of the least developed countries (LDCs) has doubled during the last 40？years and stands now at 48 condemning 1.3 billion people, more than a fifth of the world’s population, to currently live under the poverty line [1]. In the next 40？years, almost all population growth is projected to occur in the developing countries; they will, however, also bear the major share of the global burden of illness if nothing changes. For instance, life expectancy in the LDCs is still up to 30% shorter than it is in the industrialized part of the world and people do not generally have a healthy life [2]. To boot, life expectancy is declining rather than improving in some of the poorest countries. Indeed, there is a great risk that LDCs and their populations will continue to be impoverished and marginalized as they rarely enjoy the benefits brought by globalization, the information revolution and other technological advances [3]. This situation contributes strongly to the widening gap with respect to life expectancy between the LDCs and the industrialized world.Climate change, globalization, urbanization, deforestation, and intensification of agriculture are all major drivers of environmental changes. They affect human health and create or widen gaps with regard to the socio-economic status between the rich and the poor in this world [3]. Indeed, the poor may not benefit from the ongoing economic development as much as others do. One of the most important consequences of this is the continued vulnerability of marginalized people to infectious diseases, which is