One Health PACT
Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC Rotterdam
How can we prevent the next pandemic? The One Health PACT is a research partnership of experts in a large number of fields relevant to infectious disease outbreaks, ranging from ecological and climate modelling to medical entomology, virology, and public health. Citizen science is deeply rooted in the research practice of this initiative, with the general public helping to generate data via an app and by capturing and sampling mosquitoes and birds.
The Netherlands is particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of mosquito-borne viral diseases because of its water-dominated landscape, dense population and livestock, and the expected establishment of new mosquito species in the country. It’s therefore both rewarding and essential for One Health PACT to involve the general public in generating data on mosquitoes and birds (which can pick up viruses from mosquitoes). One Health PACT makes the knowledge it has gained publicly available again by writing about its research findings on its website in a comprehensible and accessible manner. It also shares reports on the progress of the research via its various social media channels.
The team is using the grant from the Rewarded! Fund to develop a unique dashboard that offers people insights – largely in real time – into research data, together with explanations. It also contributes to collaboration with AVANS and Technasium students, who assist PhD candidates and researchers to produce informative vlogs about the research.
Websites:
One Health PACT
Mosquito alert
Twitter One Health PACT
Coordinator:
Marion Koopmans, afdelingshoofd
Other group members:
Pauline Best, OIO
Ayat Abourashed, OIO
Andrea Grone
Gorben Pijlman
Leo Visser
Pascal Miesen
Henk van der Jeugd
Eefje Schrauwen
Maarten Schrama
Patricia Bruijning
