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Infectious diseases can devastate both animal and human lives, damage economies and paralyze trade. The One Health approach recognizes that the health of humans, animals and the environment are closely intertwined, requiring a collective approach to effectively detect, respond to and prevent outbreaks.

Sharing timely data about Agri-foods pathogens in a One Health framework is difficult. Barriers include incompatible data types, the lack of a trusted and secure data sharing platform, and inadequate tools for both private and multi-jurisdictional genomic analyses. To overcome this challenge, Drs. William Hsiao of Simon Fraser University, and Gary Van Domselaar of the Public Health Agency of Canada generated a data-sharing platform and data-processing tools to enable real-time, multi-jurisdictional data sharing. This will allow researchers – and their software systems – to share information faster, more accurately and more securely.

To enable information from various sources to be integrated into a common domain/platform, the team developed over one thousand new One Health standardized terms (ontologies). They also designed new ways to organize the data. These terms and data structures were integrated into open access platforms frequently used in the community. The team also enhanced the Integrated Rapid Infectious Disease Analysis (IRIDA) platform allowing users to securely access and analyze data in a format that is suitable to their needs while simultaneously sharing their data with others.

The software tools developed in this project will change how infectious disease data is shared and analyzed in Canada. This will help us better monitor when and how harmful pathogens spread in wildlife, food and livestock, and the environment. For example, the data integration improvements have already led to faster and improved systems for data sharing about avian influenza, which helps us track the virus more effectively.

By improving the communication between public health and agricultural institutions, and enhancing collaboration at the provincial, national and international levels, the health and well-being of Canadians can be protected.