Perspectives on Emerging Zoonotic Disease Research and Capacity Building in Canada

Abstract

Zoonoses are fundamental determinants of community health. Preventing, identifying and managing these infections must be a central public health focus. Most current zoonoses research focuses on the interface of the pathogen and the clinically ill person, emphasizing microbial detection, mechanisms of pathogenicity and clinical intervention strategies, rather than examining the causes of emergence, persistence and spread of new zoonoses. There are gaps in the understanding of the animal determinants of emergence and the capacity to train highly qualified individuals; these are major obstacles to preventing new disease threats. The ability to predict the emergence of zoonoses and their resulting public health and societal impacts are hindered when insufficient effort is devoted to understanding zoonotic disease epidemiology, and when zoonoses are not examined in a manner that yields fundamental insight into their origin and spread.EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH SHOULD REST ON FOUR PILLARS: enhanced communications across disciplinary and agency boundaries; the assessment and development of surveillance and disease detection tools; the examination of linkages between animal health determinants of human health outcomes; and finally, cross-disciplinary training and research. A national strategy to predict, prevent and manage emerging diseases must have a prominent and explicit role for veterinary and biological researchers. An integrated health approach would provide decision makers with a firmer foundation from which to build evidence-based disease prevention and control plans that involve complex human/animal/environmental systems, and would serve as the foundation to train and support the new cadre of individuals ultimately needed to maintain and apply research capacity in this area.

The Use of Expert Opinion to Assess the Risk of Emergence or Re-Emergence of Infectious Diseases in Canada Associated with Climate Change

“…Other suggestions relating to the indirect influence of climate on disease were also excluded due to the uncertainty and complexity of the subject [6]. One participant summed up this perspective: “changes in vector biology may or may not be overridden by changes in global movement patterns of humans which may or may not be impacted by human encroachment on wildlife, which may or may not be affected by improvements in living conditions of some people in some places as a result of predicted climate change”.…”

Foodborne parasites and climate change

“…In a discussion of some of the characteristics of emerging diseases, Stephen et al (2004) adopted some descriptors applied to emerging phenomena in business (Bonabeau, 2002) that can be applied to climate change, surely an emerging phenomenon, and to the ecosystems supporting foodborne parasites: climate change and its effects on ecosystems are often unpredictable and counterintuitive; small climate-driven changes in one component of an ecosystem can result in large changes in other components and sometimes the whole system; and it is often difficult to identify how a change in one component of the ecosystem can affect the whole system. The reports published by the IPCC provide useful overviews of advancing knowledge of what, why, when, where, and with what consequences, but the overall picture they paint is far from complete, largely because of the complexity of the new climate and its effects on our biosphere.…”

Emerging zoonoses: responsible communication with the media—lessons learned and future perspectives

“…Because they are new diseases, or old diseases in a state of flux because of the acquisition of novel virulence factors or antimicrobial resistance genes, knowledge about their epidemiology and ecology is minimal. Accurate predictions are difficult or impossible to make and rely on historical events that parallel the disease as closely as possible [11]. A drawback of predictions in the mainstream media is that they have led to some mistrust on the part of the public.…”

“…Raising awareness and educating without scaring is not an easy task. Media coverage of emerging zoonoses such as avian influenza can create the impression that the conditions are more of a threat than they really are, according to a recent study from Canada [11]. However, stories that include factual information on disease symptoms, mortality and infection rates leave readers with a more accurate view of the risks.…”