VIZIONS
One of Farrar’s first initiatives as Director of Wellcome was to set up a One Health program in Vietnam called:
VIZIONS - The Vietnam Initiative on Zoonotic Infections: A Strategic Approach to Studying Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Farrar: Our focus will be on viral infections in Vietnam with special emphasis on zoonotic viruses: these are relatively under-studied and viruses of animal origin are the dominant source of emerging infectious diseases in humans.
Rubbish. They’re way over-studied. What’s understudied is transparency in the bio-security world - let’s see if that’s not the dominant source of emerging infectious diseases in humans - imagine the money/lives we could save if it is - all we’d have to do is stop it.
- Establish a model consortium focused on an integrated approach to human and animal health .. at the epicenter of emerging infectious diseases;
The epicenter being Vietnam, supposedly. Happens to be run by a totalitarian regime - luckily we’re leaving the politics out. We’ll look closer at a VIZIONS model consortium in action soon.
- Elucidate the origin, nature, and burden of infectious diseases of unknown origin
Unless we need to obfuscate the origin. Obviously. For the common good.
Characterize genetic diversity within virus populations on either side of the species-barrier;
It’s this genetic characterization on the human side of the species-barrier that worries me
Identify socio-demographic, environmental and behavioural drivers for disease emergence;
Pick me! Pick me! THE Science culture?
Provide a platform and resource for complimentary research on human and animal pathogens, and nonviral zoonoses. The results will inform the design of surveillance .. and the opportunity to conduct detailed investigations of .. zoonotic diseases.
Always with the fear of zoonoses. When bio-terrorism ran-out-of-steam - the science community suddenly started whipping-up a fear of nature. Exact same One Health goal though - inform the design of surveillance.
Write genomics, surveillance, zoonoses, platform, resources (money/power) on a whiteboard. You’re close to the essence of Sir Jeremy Farrar.
Zoonoses is the cynical/opportunistic part of his nature - pitched to the idiot masses - who swallow it - like he knew they would - to secure the other big-picture desires.
A publisher of Farrar's Zoonotic VIZIONS was none other than Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance.
Epub 2019 Nov 13(!): Despite the global zoonotic disease burden, the underlying exposures that drive zoonotic disease emergence are not understood. Here, we aimed to assess exposures to potential sources of zoonotic disease and investigate the demographics, attitudes, and behavior of individuals with sustained occupational animal contact in Vietnam.
So timely! A paper alerting the world to the dangers of animal food processing - especially by backyard farmers in SE Asia - that may result in a pandemic at any second...
That belongs in the Timeline. Right after the Farrar/Koopmans/Nature entry on Nov 6. about the challenge to persuade countries to invest in a new surveillance system .. before its general effectiveness has been demonstrated at a country level. Were these papers a preparing of the waters?
Ultimately, our findings will be useful for better preparedness, intervention plans, disease prediction models, and the development of future research into zoonotic infections in Southeast Asia.
This research was a component of the VIZIONS programme conducted by OUCRU (Oxford University Clinical Research Unit) in Vietnam. The work was funded by Wellcome Trust of Great Britain (WT/093724). The funder had no role in the design of this project or this publication. (EcoHealth)
Yeah, that would be so out of character for Farrar to have a role in design or publication matters.
Another interesting Farrar VIZIONS papers was titled:
The evolution of Ebola virus: Insights from the 2013-2016 epidemic.
Pub: Nature, October 2016.
Quite the model consortium! Farrar, Nature, Holmes, Rambaut, Andersen.
West Africa is a fair way from Vietnam. Let’s see what that’s was about…
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