In an opinion piece released today in PLOS Genetics, University of Melbourne Dr Ash Porter, evolutionary biologist at the Doherty Institute, along with a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory (MDU-PHL) at the Doherty Institute, shares their learnings about the COVID-19 pandemic response and recommendations to prepare for the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics.<\/p>\n
Whilst public health and social measures, quarantine restrictions and vaccination have all been utilised in past and current pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic is the first to employ genomic sequencing on a massive global scale.<\/p>\n
It was an incredible achievement to bring public health genomics to the absolute forefront of the COVID-19 response and realising the dream of making day-to-day public health decisions based on pathogen genomic data, reflects University of Melbourne Professor Ben Howden, Director of the MDU-PHL who leads the team that sequenced 75 per cent of the cases in Victoria in the last two years, and co-senior author of this article.<\/p>\n
University of Melbourne Dr Sebastian Duchene, infectious disease computational biologist at the Doherty Institute and co-lead author of this article, explained that extensive analyses of the virus genome data have been key to understand the mechanisms under which variants of concern emerge.<\/p>\n
What we found through previous research is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has the ability to momentarily accelerate its evolutionary pace, enabling variants to emerge more rapidly than other viruses.<\/p>\n
This highlights the importance of continued genome surveillance efforts, Dr Duchene added.<\/p>\n
In this piece, Dr Porter et al. argue that as the virus changes, so should our approach.<\/p>\n
When were dealing with a pandemic, we cant just keep going with what weve done. Our strategy to manage it has to change along with the virus, explains Dr Porter.<\/p>\n
Dr Porter explains that a more strategic approach to manage COVID-19 and future infectious disease outbreaks would be to combine sequence data with surveillance data and other metadata, such as individual travel history or patient treatment data.<\/p>\n
Sequencing isnt the only form of data we have here, we have so many other additional streams of data that we can use; and for many infectious disease outbreaks, its not just human data, its animal data as well, Dr Porter says.<\/p>\n
Putting some of our resources towards collecting and sharing that data would be more helpful than just focusing on sequencing.<\/p>\n
In reconsidering our sequencing strategies and looking forward, we believe that the sequencing strategy could be further optimised from a modelling perspective to utilise our resources effectively.<\/p>\n
Dr Porter stresses that a global, coordinated response for data collection and modelling will be essential, both for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and future outbreaks.<\/p>\n
Much of the long-term COVID-normal future will be informed by our ability to exploit genomic epidemiology through gathering data about SARS-CoV-2 (both at the sequence and metadata level) and sharing it, Dr Porter says.<\/p>\n
1 A genome sequence is a list of the molecules that make up the code of our DNA and RNA, known as the nucleotides A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine), and either T (thymine) for DNA genomes or uracil (U) for RNA genomes. Its like a barcode. Genomic sequencing is the process of identifying the barcode.<\/p>\n
Through genomic sequencing, we can see how those pathogens, such as viruses, are changing and spreading through mapping even single changes in the genetic code.<\/p>\n
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Read more here: In an opinion piece released today in PLOS Genetics, University of Melbourne Dr Ash Porter, evolutionary biologist at the Doherty Institute, along with a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory (MDU-PHL) at the Doherty Institute, shares their learnings about the COVID-19 pandemic response and recommendations to prepare for the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics. Continue reading
\nLessons learnt from COVID-19 shed light on future pandemic preparedness - The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"