Zoonotic disease research often requires working with live animals under biosafety conditions. The welfare costs of this research can be substantial and require careful ethical oversight.
Zoonotic disease research creates genuine ethical tension: the animals used suffer real harms, but the research may prevent catastrophic human and animal pandemics. The welfare obligations are clear: minimise animal use, use the least sentient species capable of generating useful data, apply all feasible refinements, and apply rigorous ethical oversight that does not lower its standards under pandemic-driven pressure. The rush to develop COVID-19 vaccines saw concerns raised about ethical review quality in some jurisdictions. Robust 3Rs implementation in biosafety research — not just in normal circumstances but under pressure — is a welfare imperative.