Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'd also like to thank my fellow witnesses for their statements and for all their efforts during this pandemic.
As you know, I was appointed as Canada's chief science adviser on September 26, 2017, to provide science advice to the Prime Minister and cabinet. My office is responsible for ensuring scientific analyses are considered in government decisions and coordinating expert advice to cabinet. I also provide recommendations on how government can better support quality scientific research. Furthermore, my office helps to ensure that government science is fully available to the public. Lastly, I have a mandate to promote collaboration between federal scientists and academia, both in Canada and abroad, and to raise public awareness of scientific issues.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have had the opportunity to make contributions in all these areas. If I may, I will summarize them for you.
Starting in February 2020, I set up a number of expert groups and task forces. These experts are keeping us abreast of ongoing clinical and scientific challenges, and best practices for pandemic response in Canada. I have also been involved in science coordination efforts within the federal government with respect to medical countermeasures. I have worked with the broader science and research community in Canada to enhance coordination efforts.
For example, working with a few other people, I helped set up CanCOVID-19, a pan-Canadian research platform to optimize collaboration during the COVID-19 crisis. More than 2,000 researchers are registered on the platform—barely a month old—which attests to the determination and extraordinary engagement of the Canadian scientific community in the response to the pandemic.
Additionally, I'm engaged in the international science advice response to COVID-19. Chief science advisers, or the equivalent, from a dozen countries have been meeting weekly for the past two months. We discuss the dynamic developments and challenges of the pandemic and its evolving characteristics in different countries at different times. We share data and information on social and medical measures. These interactions provide important opportunities for coordinating research and science advice.
An example of this international effort was the group's call to global publishers to make COVID-19 scientific publications openly accessible to all, which the publishers quickly agreed to. This has meant that research results are now quickly disseminated and used to help manage the pandemic everywhere. This is an unprecedented development that is supporting scientific data-sharing at a rate never witnessed before.
Over the past few months, our knowledge of the new SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 has rapidly progressed, including efforts by our own Canadian researchers. However, there are still many unknowns that affect disease prevention and management. I'll highlight a few of those, with your permission.
The first area is in terms of disease susceptibility. Not everyone in the population appears to have a similar risk of infection, but how exposure to different levels of the virus leads to different individual responses is unclear. As you can imagine, this has an impact on prevention measures in different settings.
The issue of infectivity still needs to be clarified. Infected individuals seem to be contagious for two or three days prior to symptom onset until around seven days thereafter, and possibly longer. This implies that significant transmission comes from asymptomatic individuals, which creates an added challenge for early detection and the control of disease spread.
With respect to disease outcome, we've all seen that older age and chronic preconditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or obesity, have been associated with a higher risk of a poor COVID-19 outcome. However, the reasons remain unexplained. Our experts have pointed out the need for harmonized, quality data collection and sharing, which is important for sorting out the confounding variables and, more precisely, guiding disease management in the Canadian context.
With respect to prevention and treatment, Dr. Tam has already alluded to the importance of a vaccine. In the absence of acquired immunity or an effective vaccine, avoiding or minimizing exposure to the virus is the best prevention. We know what this means.
Vaccine development is under way, including in Canada, using a wide range of classical and novel approaches.
With respect to treatments, several clinical trials are ongoing, including in Canada, to test the efficacy of existing drugs. However, the results so far are disappointing. It should be noted that currently there are very few broad-acting antiviral medicines, which is why the development of new antiviral drugs is being pursued in parallel to vaccine production efforts.
Let's remember the successful management of hepatitis C and HIV with antiviral therapies, not vaccines. I think that we have hope on both fronts.
With respect to diagnostics, Dr. Tam has already mentioned the use of qPCR, which is the gold standard for testing for the presence of the virus. However, this multi-step test is not very well suited for remote areas and for other situations that require faster or repeated screening, such as borders and primary care, which is why the development of complementary detection methods is ongoing.
I have the privilege of sitting on the immunity task force with Dr. Tam. This ongoing work is going to be important to determine the actual prevalence of exposure in Canada and to inform vaccine development.
As countries reopen their economies in the weeks and months ahead, the scientific community will continue to gather more data to better understand both the virus and the disease it causes. These efforts are instrumental for our ongoing preparedness to live with and overcome the virus.
Around the globe, countries are also stepping up their efforts in key areas, including deploying robust and agile systems for virus testing and contact tracing, as well as understanding the level of the population that has been exposed to the virus.
Another area is the standardization of data collection, constantly improving the quality and developing protocols for sharing and mining the data, including using AI-supported tools. This is again an effort that Canada is part of.
Of course, everyone around the world is stocking up on medical equipment and therapeutics, or at least trying to, and putting in place national strategies for local manufacturing of personal protective equipment as well as COVID-19 diagnostics and medical countermeasures. More broadly, countries are expanding research and development efforts and considering approaches to national health security across the entire medical supply chain.
Last but not least, strengthening health emergency preparedness is on everyone's mind, including at the level of the multidisciplinary science advisory function.
In conclusion, this pandemic is highlighting the critical value of research and the importance of science coordination across disciplines and sectors. It's also underscoring the need for national production capacity for health security. Right now, we're playing catch up, but we hope that current investments and efforts will result in a sustainable ecosystem for infectious disease research and development. The war against COVID-19 will be won through science. Let's ensure that Canada's excellence in science continues to be mobilized for the benefit of all Canadians.
Thank you.
I look forward to our exchange.