Open Network for WAter-Related Diseases (ONWARD)

ONWARD网络（与水有关的疾病开放网络）致力于通过使用遥感、实地观察和数学建模对与水有关的疾病进行预测、预警和风险绘图。我们的愿景是为易受水相关疾病影响的地区提供具有成本效益的、定期更新的、地理参考的早期预警，从而能够及时部署预防措施，最大限度地减少流行病的可能性。我们的长远目标，是建立一个广泛适用于不同地区和不同疾病的制度，我们所说的“与水有关”疾病，是指一个相当广泛的类别，包括霍乱等肠道疾病;与水媒细菌或后生动物寄生虫有关的皮肤病;疟疾和登革热等病媒传播的疾病;以及肝炎等其他疾病。其中任何一项或全部都将与网络的活动有关。所涉及的“水”可能是淡水、微咸海水或沿海海水。该网络将主要应对全球气候基金的全球健康挑战（传染病），其次是应对环境冲击和变化的复原力挑战（因为与水有关的疾病的爆发受到极端天气事件的影响，预计由于气候变化，极端天气事件将变得更加频繁）。该网络还将致力于实现联合国可持续发展目标3，具体目标3d，即“加强所有国家，特别是发展中国家的能力，以预警、减少风险和管理国家和全球健康风险。“根据世界卫生组织的数据，大约有20亿人使用被粪便污染的饮用水，使他们面临死亡或因霍乱，痢疾，伤寒和脊髓灰质炎等水传播传染病而长期健康不良的风险。安全饮用水的供应受到极端天气和洪水的影响。除了死亡之外，与水有关的疾病造成的低水平感染的长期负担的影响不利于维持一支健康的劳动力队伍和整个社会的福祉，不利于可持续发展。例如，霍乱每年造成大约95，000人死亡，但它也使另外290万人患上严重的衰弱性疾病。因此，除此之外，还需要解决社区在与气候变化有关的极端天气事件中对安全饮用水供应扰动的复原力问题，在此之前，我们对与水有关的疾病造成的国家和全球健康风险进行预警、减少风险和管理的能力一直受到科学界相互孤立的限制，科学界需要集体努力才能取得进展。预测与水有关的疾病的爆发及其地理参照风险绘图是一个复杂的问题，如果我们要取得真实的进展，就需要来自若干学科（从环境生物化学、遗传学、分子生物学、社会科学和流行病学到遥感和建模）的专家进行合作。然而，所需的专家很少在科学环境中遇到彼此。一个多学科网络对于促进它们之间的思想交流至关重要，从而通过将它们团结在一个共同的目标下来建立一个合作的办法来解决一个难题。我们认为，通过上述学科专家的共同努力，在与水有关的疾病的预警、风险预测和风险管理方面取得进展是可能的。建立相关网络是实现这一目标的最佳途径。已组建了一个由杰出专家和相关利益攸关方组成的国际小组来开展这项工作。网络将是开放的。除了研究活动外，还将通过两个培训班提供能力建设部分。

The ONWARD Network (Open Network for Water-Related Diseases) is dedicated to forecasting, early warning and risk mapping for water-associated diseases through use of remote sensing, field observations and mathematical modelling. Our vision is to enable cost-effective, regularly updated, geo-referenced early warning for areas vulnerable to water-associated diseases, which in turn will enable preventive measures to be deployed in a timely manner to minimise the probability of epidemics. Our long-term vision is to establish a system that will be applicable broadly, in a variety of localities and for a variety of diseases.By "water-associated" disease, we mean a rather broad class, including diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera; skin diseases associated with water-borne bacteria or metazoan parasites; vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; and others such as hepatitis. Any or all of them will be relevant to the activities of the network. The "water" involved may be fresh, or brackish or coastal seawater. The network will respond primarily the GCRF Challenge of Global Health (infectious diseases), and secondarily to that of Resilience to Environmental Shocks and Change (since outbreaks of water-associated diseases are affected by extreme weather events, expected to become more frequent as a result of climate change). The network will also address UN Sustainable Development Goal 3, Target 3d, to "Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks." According to the World Health Organisation, some two billion people use faecally-contaminated drinking water, putting them at risk of death or chronic poor health from water-borne infectious diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Provision of safe drinking water is hostage to the influence of extreme weather and flooding. Apart from the fatalities, the effect of a chronic burden of lower-level infection by water-associated diseases is antagonistic to the maintenance of a healthy work force and to the well-being of society in general, to the detriment of sustainable development. For example, cholera kills an estimated 95,000 people every year, but it also makes another 2.9 million seriously ill with a debilitating disease. Hence the need to address, in addition, the resilience of communities to perturbations of the safe drinking water supply under extreme weather events associated with a changing climate.Before now, our ability to develop early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks due to water-associated diseases has been limited by mutual isolation of the scientific communities whose collective effort is required to make progress. Forecasting outbreaks of water-associated diseases and their geo-referenced risk mapping is a complex matter for which the collaboration of experts from several disciplines (ranging from environmental biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, social sciences and epidemiology to remote sensing and modelling) is needed if we are to make real advances. Hitherto, the required experts have rarely encountered each other in a scientific setting. A multidisciplinary network is essential to foster exchange of ideas between them, and so build a collaborative approach to a difficult problem by uniting them behind a common target. We believe that progress in early warning, risk forecasting and risk management of water-associated diseases will be possible through the combined efforts of specialists in the stated disciplines. Establishment of a related network is the perfect way to bring this about. An international team of outstanding experts, as well as related stakeholders, has been assembled to undertake the work. The network will be an open one. As well as the research activity, there will be a component of capacity building delivered through two training courses.