PANDASIA

Project description

PANDASIA is an acronym for “Pandemic Literacy and Viral Zoonotic Spillover Risk at the Frontline of Disease Emergence in Southeast Asia to Improve Pandemic Preparedness.” It is co-funded by the European Union (EU) and UK Research and Innovation.

The primary objectives of PANDASIA are to gather information on social and biological data, model zoonotic spillover rates, and study disease emergence in high-risk settings in Thailand to identify potential pandemic drivers along nature-rural-urban gradients. With a better understanding of the interactions between the underlying drivers of spillover at local levels, evidence-based strategies for pandemic preparedness and public health measures can be developed and improved. PANDASIA will utilize our advancements in prediction to determine, analyze, and model the potential for viral pathogen spillover from the perspectives of One Health (OH) and EcoHealth (EH).

The research and strategies will be based on community-driven, co-created interventions, and communication strategies aimed at enhancing local community and public health authority pandemic health literacy and preparedness. The implementation of PANDASIA is expected to bring immediate local and national benefits, as well as long-term regional and international benefits for society (pandasia-project.com/project-profile/).

Our primary role in the project is, through collaboration across the consortium, to develop novel models on spillover risk, integrate data on wild and domesticated animals, virology and human society in the models that can be used to generate new insights into socio-ecological processes governing spillover risk.