The Infectious Disease and Climate Change (IDCC) Program addresses the rise of infectious diseases and their health impacts as a result of our changing climate.
This program supports the Government of Canada to deliver on its commitments in the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change and the Government of Canada's Adaptation Action Plan, as part of the National Adaptation Strategy.
Established in 2016, the IDCC Program focuses on preparing and protecting people in Canada from climate sensitive infectious diseases that are zoonotic (diseases that can be transmitted from animals and insects to humans), food-borne or water-borne. The Program supports surveillance and monitoring of infectious diseases, risk assessments, modelling, laboratory diagnostics, as well as health professional education and public awareness activities. The IDCC Program also aims to advance the science and understanding of health risks and best practices to adapt to the impacts of climate change on human health.
In 2017, the Infectious Disease and Climate Change Fund was launched as part of the Program. This fund will invest up to $2 million per year, until 2028, for projects that focus on:
- Monitoring and Surveillance
- Building baseline data and enhancing knowledge and expertise to understand, predict, and monitor current and future risks through innovative approaches to surveillance, detection and analysis of climate driven infectious diseases
- Collaborative and novel approaches for the collection, sharing and use of data to support evidence-based public health actions that equip and empower Canadians to adapt
- Education and Awareness
- Promoting the development, uptake and distribution of education and awareness materials for health professionals
- Facilitating education, awareness and the dissemination of tools and best practices within or across Canadian communities and among vulnerable populations
Since its launch in 2017, and including these new investments, the IDCCF has invested in 41 projects totalling $14.7 million. The IDCCF has also provided $2.75 million to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network.
The projects announced today include:
- $440,101 to the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing for phase two of a project to better prepare future nurses to address climate-driven infectious diseases by amplifying uptake of national guidelines for nursing education developed in phase one and enhancing existing education resources to foster their wider dissemination.
- $449,467 to Toronto Metropolitan University for a project to investigate the burden of recreational water illness due to exposure to cyanobacterial blooms and their toxins in targeted, popular freshwater beaches in Ontario and Manitoba.
- $450,000 to the Université de Montréal for a project to explore and establish the epidemiological picture of selected parasitic zoonoses in Canada as a basis to evaluate how climate might influence their distribution now and in the future.
- $449,153 to the Université de Sherbrooke for a project to develop a community science approach monitoring the changing distribution of endemic and exotic mosquitoes due to climate change.
- $439,247 to the University of Guelph for a project that looks to identify and describe climate-sensitive companion animal zoonoses and potential health risks; model risks using integrated health and environmental data; and create a One Health Informatics framework for an electronic medical records-based companion animal zoonoses and environmental surveillance system.
- $444,420 to the University of Ottawa for phase two of a project that will expand its activities to better characterize and monitor changes in tick populations and tick-borne disease risk in the context of urban development using a One Health approach.
