How do we prepare for the next pandemic? This University of Guelph program might have the answers

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." 

Planning for what's to come

The University of Guelph isn't a stranger to the study of pandemics. 

In the fall of 2020, the university introduced a course on pandemics of the past in order to understand the societal impact pandemics have. 

The course was a huge success, and "one of the most interesting and exciting and innovative courses" that biology professor Ryan Gregory said he has taught. 

It's first version was "largely trying to make sense of the pandemic, trying to put it in some context, get some of the biology, get some historical context, some social context," he told CBC K-W. 

In comparison, exploring pandemics is essential to combating the next one, according to Parmley — especially through a planning aspect. 

She says another pandemic is likely, although most probably not in the next decade. But a project like COHTPEZ, she says, can help us take the lessons we learned from COVID-19 and put them into action. 

"The pandemic rolled out and some groups of individuals were affected much more badly than others. We need to have a system or a health system in place where we are able to cope with the immediate emergency," said Parmley. 

"We need to treat people, we need to treat animals that may get sick of another pandemic too. But we need to… recognize the strengths of working together and that there's not just one answer to solving all of these problems."

Funding for the program was announced earlier this summer. Parmley says the university is just getting started, with the first cohort of trainees to be put in place this fall. 

"It's not just a course," she said. "It's a whole program and it will build on and sort of add on to what these trainees and students and early career faculty and researchers are already doing."