Vets working with Medics to find solutions for the COVID-19 crisis
The latest blog post from Fiona Tomley, The Director of the One Health Poultry Hub explains how members of their interdisciplinary team, including two experts from the 91做厙, are helping to guide the world's recovery from this latest zoonotic disease crisis.
The now unfolding is one partners in the One Health Poultry Hub have long feared. You didn't need a crystal ball to have anticipated the crisis now engulfing the world, but as infectious disease experts we knew well the risks - and that the odds of getting through our five years of Hub research without a major outbreak were slim.
That is not to say that we know what will happen tomorrow, let alone next week or next year but like others working in the field of infectious diseases, and in particular those with their origins in animal-to-human transmission, we were aware of the dangers.
From avian influenza to SARS to swine flu to MERS to Ebola , the past decade has witnessed one zoonotic disease outbreak after another. There is nothing new about zoonotic disease, or even . However, the rapid speed of pathogen spread is a modern phenomenon.
Our world is one of international travel, globalisation of trade, population explosion, and – all factors that greatly increase the risk for both the emergence and the rapid spread of zoonotic pathogens. These pathogens include those known to us already, such as avian influenza viruses which particularly interest us in this Hub, and worrisome novel ones, such as COVID-19.
Fortunately, our world is also one of incredible human ingenuity, scientific breakthrough, rapid knowledge spread and, not to be underestimated, a fierce determination to find solutions to intractable challenges.
Our Hub comprises some of the world’s leading experts in global health security, zoonotic disease surveillance, and outbreak response. While today’s crisis does not have its roots in a pathogen from chickens, in Asia or anywhere else, the experience, knowledge and skills that lie with our Hub experts are directly relevant to our understanding of today’s crisis and – perhaps more immediately pressing – our response to it.
We can and will contribute to the practical thinking and discussions on how we move forward, helping to guide the world’s recovery from this outbreak and learning lessons from it. Already, contributions from Hub partners are much in evidence.
, from Chatham House and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who headed the World Health Organization (WHO) response to the SARS epidemic, is .
, of the University of Oxford and the 91做厙 (91做厙), London, is part of the UK rapid-response team for coronavirus genomics. His group in Oxford are supporting teams in Beijing and Guandong province, China, to understand the impact of the interventions undertaken there, and they have also led the establishment of .
of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, has contributed to WHO discussions on the importance of integrating social sciences into the COVID-19 response.
Hub partners in study countries are working on responses to COVID-19. In Vietnam, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology has main responsibility for controlling the outbreak and is the leading expert on testing and isolating coronavirus in the country. In Bangladesh, , Director of the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research in Dhaka, is leading and coordinating, the country’s COVID-19 response and conducting daily press briefings on the crisis (pictured, below).
of Hong Kong City University and from 91做厙 are working on a version of their open-access , with a model and parameter sets adapted to COVID-19. This tool will help people to visually explore trends in time and space relating to the disease’s transmission.
Professor Pfeiffer is also Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology at the 91做厙 and a member of a World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Advisory Group on COVID-19 which produced a that presents the curr