Grants and Contributions

Establish a National Centre for Pandemic Research

Establish a National Centre for Pandemic Research

Establish a National Centre for Pandemic Research

Establish a National Centre for Pandemic Research

This project utilizes the Entos Fusogenix DNA delivery platform to rapidly develop, validate, manufacture and deploy countermeasures to protect the majority of the Canadian population from SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease.

This project is comprised of five distinct sub-projects, each contributing to the overall objective of enhancing Canada’s preparedness for foreign animal disease incursions, specifically African swine fever (ASF) and foot and mouth disease (FMD):

Sub-project 1: CanSpotASF Epidemiologic Surveillance Analysis

Sub-project 2: ASF Large-Scale Depopulation Training Project

Sub-project 3: ASF/FMD - Defining Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments and Industry Partners (FPTI) Roles and Responsibilities Project
Sub-project 4: Foot and Mouth Vaccine Strategy Preparedness Efforts - Phase 1
Sub-project 5: African Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth Disease Exercises and Drills

Project activities include: (1) providing health service delivery innovations, such as combining family planning services with COVID-19 vaccine delivery; (2) increasing the capacity of the health workforce by training and supporting community health workers; and (3) strengthening country-level disease surveillance and data collection to help countries target resources where they are most needed.

At the present time, the United States has a Covid-19 mandate that requires any company over 100 employees to test their employees that have not yet been vaccinated. This mandate requires companies to find logistical services to assist them in rolling out a testing program sometimes amidst thousands of employees in separate states across the country.

To be eligible to the competition, applications must be co-led by Canadian and African researchers and address all objectives:

• Provide rapid evidence to inform clinical and health system management and public health response, and/or decision-making and planning within and across jurisdictions in Canada and internationally;
• Undertake robust, multi-country cross learning, and comparative research (including in collaboration with other international researchers where appropriate) on:
o the safety and real-world effectiveness of medical or other countermeasures deployed* (including vaccines and therapeutics) to treat and/or prevent monkeypox infections in people in Canada and globally; and
o the underlying serological histories and transmission dynamics of the current monkeypox outbreaks in Canada and globally (including time of exposure and transmission during asymptomatic phase, mechanisms of human-to-human transmission, and key risk factors for infection and transmission);
• Align with and contribute to the WHO Global Clinical Platform for monkeypox and other international monkeypox surveillance and research coordination activities by:
o adopting WHO case investigation and reporting forms;
o developing robust study protocols that can be integrated and harmonized with international clinical datasets; and
o contributing to global real-time sharing and analyses of research findings across different study contexts
*Please note that medical countermeasures against monkeypox (including vaccines, drugs and other therapeutic agents) will not be provided by the Government of Canada for research supported through this funding opportunity.

To be eligible to the competition, applications must be co-led by Canadian and African researchers and address all objectives:

• Provide rapid evidence to inform clinical and health system management and public health response, and/or decision-making and planning within and across jurisdictions in Canada and internationally;
• Undertake robust, multi-country cross learning, and comparative research (including in collaboration with other international researchers where appropriate) on:
o the safety and real-world effectiveness of medical or other countermeasures deployed* (including vaccines and therapeutics) to treat and/or prevent monkeypox infections in people in Canada and globally; and
o the underlying serological histories and transmission dynamics of the current monkeypox outbreaks in Canada and globally (including time of exposure and transmission during asymptomatic phase, mechanisms of human-to-human transmission, and key risk factors for infection and transmission);
• Align with and contribute to the WHO Global Clinical Platform for monkeypox and other international monkeypox surveillance and research coordination activities by:
o adopting WHO case investigation and reporting forms;
o developing robust study protocols that can be integrated and harmonized with international clinical datasets; and
o contributing to global real-time sharing and analyses of research findings across different study contexts
*Please note that medical countermeasures against monkeypox (including vaccines, drugs and other therapeutic agents) will not be provided by the Government of Canada for research supported through this funding opportunity.