McGill Launches Lab to Prepare for Future Pandemics & Emergencies | Canada News
- Montréal – McGill University has officially launched a new laboratory dedicated to pandemic and emergency preparedness, recognizing that another global health crisis is inevitable.
- Currently staffed by seven scientists, PERL is designed to expand and incorporate experts from across the province.
- The impetus for PERL stems from the understanding that the next crisis will not wait for adequate preparation.
Montréal – McGill University has officially launched a new laboratory dedicated to pandemic and emergency preparedness, recognizing that another global health crisis is inevitable. The Pandemic and Emergency Readiness Lab (PERL), established on , aims to improve Canada’s response to future pandemics, climate disasters, and other emergencies.
Currently staffed by seven scientists, PERL is designed to expand and incorporate experts from across the province. The lab’s core mission is to advance research and advise policymakers on effective crisis management strategies, according to Dr. Joanne Liu, Director of PERL.
The impetus for PERL stems from the understanding that the next crisis will not wait for adequate preparation. “We have to identify the best practices,” Dr. Liu stated during the launch event at McGill University.
Experts agree that the COVID-19 pandemic, while significant, may have been a relatively mild precursor to potentially far more devastating future outbreaks. Dr. Liu explained, “We don’t want to be alarmist because there’s such trauma in the population, but the reality is that [for COVID-19], the lethality wasn’t that high… It was contagious, but not super contagious like measles, for example. So, we weren’t in the worst-case scenario imaginable.”
Addressing Systemic Weaknesses with a Civil Reserve
PERL’s researchers are focused on bolstering Canada’s already strained healthcare system. Dr. Liu highlighted the recurring strain on emergency departments, even during typical flu seasons: “We see it just with the flu season, for example, our emergency rooms are full, overwhelmed, year after year.”
A key proposed solution is the creation of a national civil reserve – a readily deployable team of trained personnel. PERL has already submitted a research proposal to explore the feasibility of this initiative. Dr. Liu drew a parallel to fire departments, stating, “They’re at the station, they wait, if there’s a crisis, they’re there. It’s a reserve to go put out fires. We’d like to have that at the national level for crises.”
The envisioned reserve would comprise hundreds, potentially thousands, of individuals across Canada, receiving ongoing training and simulations to maintain competency in crisis management. This reserve would be designed to integrate with both international and local crisis responses, exposing members to a range of scenarios, including epidemics and natural disasters.
“To have a critical mass of people trained in ‘stand-by’ that, when things go wrong and the province is overwhelmed, it can call on this entity instead of calling on the army at the last minute, which, in fact, has never been really trained to do health, vaccinations, monitoring people in quarantine,” Dr. Liu noted, referencing the Canadian Armed Forces’ involvement in long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Combating Misinformation as a Critical Preparedness Measure
While focused on health crises, PERL’s scope extends to climate emergencies and armed conflicts, recognizing the interconnectedness of these threats. Dr. Liu explained, “What we see is that these crises, which often overlap, create a real ripple and multiplier effect on health systems and society.” She further elaborated on the link between environmental pressures and pandemic emergence, stating, “At the environmental crisis level, it fuels pandemics, because we know that the pressure we put on the environment leads to species jumps. That’s how Ebola arrived in 2014.” A species jump refers to the transmission of a virus from an animal to a human.
A significant component of PERL’s work will be dedicated to addressing the spread of misinformation and disinformation. Dr. Liu emphasized that this is “probably one of the biggest threats to keeping a population together.” The lab has initiated a project focused on measles, prompted by declining vaccination rates linked to unfounded claims about a connection between the measles vaccine and autism, as well as a post-COVID dip in overall vaccination coverage.
Dr. Liu, also a professor in the Department of Global Health and Public Health at McGill University, underscored the importance of high vaccination rates for measles protection, stating that coverage of over 94% is necessary to achieve population immunity. “We are far from that, we are far from the target,” she said.
PERL’s researchers have already begun their work, focusing on risk anticipation, data innovation, and system improvements. The lab’s efforts represent a proactive step towards strengthening Canada’s resilience in the face of future crises.