PANDASIA – Preventing Future Pandemics
Emerging infectious diseases caused by viruses and bacteria and transmitted between animals and humans (so-called zoonoses) pose an increasing threat to global health. Climate change and biodiversity loss increase the risk of new pandemics. The transdisciplinary PANDASIA project is investigating the risks of new pandemics and developing strategies to make spillover events less likely.
| Full project title: | PANDASIA – Pandemic literacy and viral zoonotic spillover risk at the frontline of disease emergence in Southeast Asia to improve pandemic preparedness |
| Duration: | 01/2023 - 12/2027 |
| Third-party funded: | yes |
| Involved department(s): | Dept Wildlife Diseases |
| Leibniz-IZW project leader(s): | Alex Greenwood (Dept Wildlife Diseases) |
| Leibniz-IZW project team: | Cora Knoblauch (Science Management) |
| Consortium partner(s): | Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI), Khon Kaen University (KKU), Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg (UKHD), Queen Mary University of London, Center of Excellence for Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases in Animals (CU-EIDAs) at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University (CU), Umeå University, Faculty of Environment & Resource Studies, Mahidol University (MU), SUPA71 Co., Ltd. |
| Current funding organisation: | This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2023 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101095444 |
| Research foci: | Understanding traits and evolutionary adaptations |
| Understanding wildlife health and disturbed homeostasis |
Southeast Asia is considered a hotspot for the occurrence of zoonotic diseases owing to its high biodiversity, population density and human mobility. Science has so far focussed too much on measures taken after the outbreak of a pandemic to bring it under control and too little on understanding the causes of the pathogens themselves, the consortium observed and started the PANDASIA project. One of the project’s main objectives is therefore to improve health literacy, particularly in rural regions of Thailand, and to prevent the outbreak of local pandemics.
PANDASIA is an international transdisciplinary project: biologists, veterinarians, mathematicians, sociologists and human physicians from Norway, Sweden, the UK, Germany and Thailand are working closely together to understand the dynamics of zoonotic spillover infections and develop preventive measures. Prof Alex D. Greenwood from the Leibniz-IZW and his colleagues from Khon Kaen University are examining blood and tissue samples from wildlife for viruses that can spill over into humans. They are using state-of-the-art molecular, evolutionary and cell-based approaches to characterise viruses at the interfaces between humans, animals, insect vectors and environmental sources. Their aim is to determine which viruses pose a risk for the emergence of pandemics under which circumstances and to identify the risk of such viral spillover.
The project is co-funded by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation. In 2023, the team began collecting biological data with the aim of developing mathematical models for infections risks in Thailand. By better understanding the factors that lead to local infection hotspots, evidence-based strategies for pandemic preparedness and public health measures will be developed and improved to reduce the risk of spillover infections.