# VIZIONS

<span style="font-weight: 400;">One of Farrar’s first initiatives as Director of Wellcome was to set up a One Health program in Vietnam called:</span>

[*<span style="font-weight: 400;">VIZIONS</span>*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282277749_The_Vietnam_Initiative_on_Zoonotic_Infections_VIZIONS_A_Strategic_Approach_to_Studying_Emerging_Zoonotic_Infectious_Diseases)*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> - The Vietnam Initiative on Zoonotic Infections: A Strategic Approach to Studying Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases</span>*

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">Farrar:</span>](https://app.dimensions.ai/details/grant/grant.3637197) *<span style="font-weight: 400;">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</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Rubbish. They’re way over-studied. What’s understudied is transparency in the bio-security world - let’s see if that’s not </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">the dominant source of emerging infectious diseases in humans</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> - imagine the money/lives we could save if it is - all we’d have to do is</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> stop it</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

[*<span style="font-weight: 400;">WT-VIZIONS </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Visions include</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">:</span>*](https://app.dimensions.ai/details/grant/grant.3637197)*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span>*

- *<span style="font-weight: 400;">Establish a **model consortium** focused on an integrated approach to human and animal health .. at the epicenter of emerging infectious diseases;</span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The epicenter being Vietnam, supposedly.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Happens to be run by a totalitarian regime - luckily we’re leaving the politics out. We’ll look closer at a VIZIONS </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">model consortium</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> in action soon.</span>

- *<span style="font-weight: 400;">Elucidate the origin, nature, and burden of infectious diseases of </span>****unknown origin*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Unless we need to obfuscate the origin. Obviously. For the common good.</span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Characterize genetic diversity within virus populations on either side of the species-barrier;</span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s this [genetic characterization](https://dulandrift.formosahut.com/books/the-covid-atrocity/page/oxfordxinjiang-the-belt-road-initiative) on the human </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">side of the species-barrier</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> that worries me</span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Identify socio-demographic, environmental and behavioural drivers for disease emergence;</span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Pick me! Pick me! THE Science culture?</span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Provide a </span>****platform*** *<span style="font-weight: 400;">and </span>****resource*** *<span style="font-weight: 400;">for complimentary research on human and animal pathogens, and nonviral zoonoses. </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">The results will inform the </span>****design of surveillance*** *<span style="font-weight: 400;">.. and the </span>****opportunity*** *<span style="font-weight: 400;">to conduct detailed investigations of .. zoonotic diseases.</span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">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 </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">One Health</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> goal though - </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">inform the design of surveillance</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Write </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">genomics, surveillance, zoonoses, platform, resources </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">(money/power) on a whiteboard. You’re close to the essence of Sir Jeremy Farrar. </span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">Zoonoses </span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">A publisher of Farrar's Zoonotic VIZIONS was none other than Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">**[<span class="secondary-date">Epub 2019 Nov 13</span>(!):](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31720941/)**  *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.*  
</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">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... </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">That belongs in the [Timeline](https://dulandrift.formosahut.com/books/covid-timeline-towards-patient-zero/page/the-event). Right after the [Farrar/Koopmans/Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1717-y#Tab1) 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? </span>

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">[Ultimately](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31720941/), 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.</span>*

*<span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;"> (EcoHealth)</span>*<span style="font-weight: 400;">  
</span>*

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yeah, that would be so out of character for Farrar to have a role in design or publication matters.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Another interesting Farrar VIZIONS </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">papers was titled: </span>

[<span style="font-weight: 400;">The evolution of Ebola virus: Insights from the 2013-2016 epidemic.</span>](https://bibbase.org/network/publication/holmes-dudas-rambaut-andersen-theevolutionofebolavirusinsightsfromthe20132016epidemic-2016)<span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Authors:</span> **Holmes, E. C.;** <span style="font-weight: 400;">Dudas, G</span>**.; Rambaut, A.; and Andersen, K. G.**

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Pub:</span> ***Nature*,**<span style="font-weight: 400;"> October 2016.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Quite the model consortium! Farrar, Nature, Holmes, Rambaut, Andersen. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">West Africa is a fair way from Vietnam. Let’s see what that’s was about…</span>