How do we prepare for the next pandemic? This University of Guelph program might have the answers
CBC
A new six-year training program at the University of Guelph is set to prepare scientists for the inevitable: the next pandemic.
The course, co-lead by researchers at the university, will use the One Health approach to research and build capacity for a next pandemic in Canada.
The Canadian One Health Training Program on Emerging Zoonoses, or COHTPEZ, is the first training of its kind in the country.
Dr. Jane Parmley, professor in the Ontario Veterinary College's Department of Population Medicine and the project's research lead, says One Health works to study the health of people, animals, ecosystems and plants.
Studying how to combat the next pandemic is relevant to learning the ways in which our health is affected by our environments, she says, a defining factor of the One Health approach.
"Your health and my health is affected by the places that we live, the other people that we connect with and see every day," she said.
"And if one of those things is not healthy, then the other one is unlikely to be healthy long term either… it's about doing something different. So we don't want to do just the same things more or better, but oftentimes I think we want to do different things. And so really at its core, I think One Health is about inspiring positive change."
The University of Guelph isn't a stranger to the study of pandemics.
