ZonMw is making 2.5 million euros available to the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH) for research on pandemic preparedness. The application for the research was submitted through Utrecht University on behalf of the NCOH (in which nine Dutch knowledge institutions participate, including UMC Utrecht). The research follows on from a National Growth Fund application that NCOH researchers previously submitted together with the Pandemic & Disease Preparedness Center (PDPC). Dick Heederik (Utrecht University), one of the submitters: “We are extremely pleased that ZonMw has granted these funds. Now we can get to work on the important lessons learned from the corona pandemic.”
How can we detect a potential pandemic at an early stage and collaborate more effectively in the process? Analyses of the corona pandemic have revealed a number of shortcomings that this study aims to highlight. For example, there was a lack of early warning systems for emerging infectious diseases. It also proved difficult to reliably assess key characteristics of pathogens and not easy to measure airborne virus as part of transmission studies. Developments in the field of mathematical modeling are rapid. For example, models are now becoming available to predict pathogen development. It is important to gain more experience with these models and further develop them. And perhaps most importantly: the strategies for detecting pathogens in humans and animals currently run separately from each other. This needs to be different and more integrated.
Dick Heederik (UU), Marc Bonten (UMC Utrecht), Marion Koopmans (Erasmus MC) and Annemarie Rebel (Wageningen University & Research and chairman NCOH) jointly submitted the application to ZonMw on behalf of NCOH. With the awarded funds, 24 postdocs can do one year of research at the various partner institutes of NCOH. For UMC Utrecht, this involves a total of four postdocs at the Department of Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the Julius Center .
“It is initially a one-year program, and hopefully this will become a longer period,” Marc Bonten says hopefully. “That would be wonderful, of course.”
The Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH) brings together leading academic research institutes in the Netherlands in an open innovation network that responds to the theme of One Health. The goal is an integrated approach to global infectious disease risks and sustainable solutions to major societal challenges in animal and human health, healthy wildlife and ecosystems. The NCOH focuses its research and further knowledge development on antibiotic resistance, emerging infectious diseases, smart animal husbandry and healthy ecosystems. The NCOH creates collaboration among academic and research institutions, government agencies, NGOs, public health institutes and industrial partners. The NCOH partners are Amsterdam UMC, Erasmus MC, LUMC, Radboudumc, University of Groningen, UMC Utrecht, Leiden University, Utrecht University and Wageningen University & Research.
