Since it is impossible to predict when the next pandemic will occur, it is best to prepare for it right away. It is to monitor families of viruses and to be able to adopt good public health measures that a new research chair is being created at Laval University.
This Canada Excellence Research Chair will benefit from $8 million in funding over eight years to monitor influenza type A viruses and coronaviruses.
To lead the work, Laval University recruited Kanta Subbarao, an international expert in the biology of viruses, virus-host interactions and immune responses. She will assume positions as a researcher at the CHU de Québec – Université Laval Research Center and as a professor in the Department of Microbiology-Infectiology and Immunology of the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval.
The research chair will promote a “one health” approach that aims to take into account the health of humans, animals and the environment.
Ms. Subbarao explained that her future team will focus on influenza and coronaviruses since these two families of viruses are likely to transmit viruses from animals to humans. “Some of these viruses affect animals, and normally they stay in animals and don’t spread to humans. But what we have experienced with influenza and coronavirus shows us that occasionally they cross this barrier. They infect mammals and sometimes humans,” she explains.
“We are focusing on these two families because over the last 100 years we have had several pandemics caused by influenza viruses and one caused by a coronavirus,” added the researcher. We thought the 2019 pandemic would be caused by an influenza virus and we were very surprised that it was a coronavirus.”
But the next pandemic could arise due to another group of viruses. According to Ms. Subbarao, the paramyxovirus family should also be closely monitored.
Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic
Several lessons have been learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and this will definitely help next time. In particular, we learned that closing borders works to try to keep the virus out of reach for as long as possible.
Masks, while highly controversial, have also been helpful in minimizing the spread of the virus. “We have learned that lack of information, misinformation and lack of trust in public health can be very damaging in the context of a health emergency. This is the kind of key learning that we need to learn from to do better,” Ms. Subbarao said.
She indicated that there is currently a great effort to develop drugs and vaccines that will target certain branches of viruses in order to avoid having to invent them urgently. “We now know that we can try to find antiviral drugs that will work for a whole family of viruses. We have vaccines for COVID-19, but should we have vaccines for the entire family of viruses? This is the kind of effort we can make while we wait for something new to emerge,” the researcher explained.
She emphasizes that monitoring viruses is a global effort and that several global actors contribute, including the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health. “What I hope is that our lab will make connections with people who work with animals in Canada so that when a new concern emerges we will be able to determine how much of a threat it poses to humans “, shared Ms. Subbarao.
No one wants to hear about another pandemic, she said, but it’s crucial to monitor and prepare for viruses that are circulating, especially those that can be transmitted from animals to humans.
