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Source: http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2009/12/22/12236226-sun.html
Disease outbreak response hit and miss
By JOHN MINER
Last Updated: 22nd December 2009, 7:22am
SARS, West Nile disease, H1N1 and BSE have convinced Dr. Bhagirath Singh that Canada needs to do more to get ready for the next disease outbreak.
"It is still really hit and miss. We need a national, Canadian plan to address these kinds of outbreaks," Singh warned yesterday. "We have taken these on on an ad hoc basis."
The founding scientific director of the Canadian Institute of Infection and Immunity, based at the UWO, Singh is retiring from the post after nine years.
The institute -- and Singh as its point man on infectious disease -- has been confronted with co-ordinating Canada's research response to the deadly SARS virus and the H1N1 flu pandemic. It also had to grapple with West Nile, Mad Cow disease and C. difficile.
The lesson from the nearly annual outbreaks is, there will be more to come, Singh said.
"With the climate changing, there is going to be a shorter time span for things moving around," Singh said. "The food we eat, water we drink -- all those are under threat from infectious diseases."
When a new disease emerges, the institute works to draw together research efforts across Canada and internationally, working with a list of 2,000 research contacts.
When SARS hit in 2003, the institute played a major role in funding research and establishing the Canadian SARS Research Consortium.
The research led to an understanding of how SARS was transmitted, a breakthrough that had global health implications.
"We are the bridge between federal and provincial governments and NGOs (non-governmental organizations), health charities and others who really have a common mission but have no way of co-ordinating the effort," Singh said.
It's important for Canada to maintain its own health research and not rely on work done in other countries, he said.
"If there is a Canadian issue, nobody is going to give you a vaccine if you don't have the capacity to do it. You can see that with H1N1. There was such a panic across the world, but we had the capacity to produce the vaccine.
"We have to have people, we have to have resources and we have to have a plan so we don't fall short."
Singh said it's also important the research be used when politicians are making policy decisions, such as how to cut costs.
"If you don't have evidence-based policy-making, you are simply cutting corners," Singh said, pointing to the deadly Walkerton tainted water disaster where cutbacks in the Ontario Environment Ministry were partly blamed.
john.miner@sunmedia.ca
Disease outbreak response hit and miss
By JOHN MINER
Last Updated: 22nd December 2009, 7:22am
SARS, West Nile disease, H1N1 and BSE have convinced Dr. Bhagirath Singh that Canada needs to do more to get ready for the next disease outbreak.
"It is still really hit and miss. We need a national, Canadian plan to address these kinds of outbreaks," Singh warned yesterday. "We have taken these on on an ad hoc basis."
The founding scientific director of the Canadian Institute of Infection and Immunity, based at the UWO, Singh is retiring from the post after nine years.
The institute -- and Singh as its point man on infectious disease -- has been confronted with co-ordinating Canada's research response to the deadly SARS virus and the H1N1 flu pandemic. It also had to grapple with West Nile, Mad Cow disease and C. difficile.
The lesson from the nearly annual outbreaks is, there will be more to come, Singh said.
"With the climate changing, there is going to be a shorter time span for things moving around," Singh said. "The food we eat, water we drink -- all those are under threat from infectious diseases."
When a new disease emerges, the institute works to draw together research efforts across Canada and internationally, working with a list of 2,000 research contacts.
When SARS hit in 2003, the institute played a major role in funding research and establishing the Canadian SARS Research Consortium.
The research led to an understanding of how SARS was transmitted, a breakthrough that had global health implications.
"We are the bridge between federal and provincial governments and NGOs (non-governmental organizations), health charities and others who really have a common mission but have no way of co-ordinating the effort," Singh said.
It's important for Canada to maintain its own health research and not rely on work done in other countries, he said.
"If there is a Canadian issue, nobody is going to give you a vaccine if you don't have the capacity to do it. You can see that with H1N1. There was such a panic across the world, but we had the capacity to produce the vaccine.
"We have to have people, we have to have resources and we have to have a plan so we don't fall short."
Singh said it's also important the research be used when politicians are making policy decisions, such as how to cut costs.
"If you don't have evidence-based policy-making, you are simply cutting corners," Singh said, pointing to the deadly Walkerton tainted water disaster where cutbacks in the Ontario Environment Ministry were partly blamed.
john.miner@sunmedia.ca
