VIZIONS
EBOLA 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 later.
Elucidate the origin, nature, and burden of infectious diseases of unknown origin in .. human study populations;
Yeah right. Unless we need to obfuscate the origin in human study populations.
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 zoonotic. 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, zoonotic, platform, resources (money/power) on a whiteboard. You’re close to the essence of Sir Jeremy Farrar.
Zoonotic 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.
So why am i talking about one particular funding arm of Wellcome focused on Vietnam?
One of the VIZIONS research papers was:
The evolution of Ebola virus: Insights from the 2013-2016 epidemic.
Pub: Nature, October 2016.
That’s quite a cohort - Farrar, Nature, Holmes, Rambaut, Andersen. Fair way from Vietnam. Let’s see what that’s was about…