Looking at human and animal health in a joined-up way is vital to help predict, and address, future outbreaks of Coronavirus and flu, an expert believes.

Professor Bruce Whitelaw says OneHealth - studying human health, animal health and our environment in a coordinated way - had huge potential.

Prof Whitelaw, a geneticist and senior academic at the University of Edinburgh, discusses OneHealth in detail in the latest Data Capital podcast by The Scotsman and the Data Driven Innovation initiative.

In the podcast, he says: “I’d like to see us being able to predict what the next specific virus, what the next likely outbreak, will be. Not only would we be able to predict it, but put in place a whole variety of aspects to mitigate it: drug development, better surveillance to see which animals are better able to resist the virus, and therefore, less likely to transmit it - and policies and strategies to help society adapt.”

Prof Whitelaw says there are different ideas of what OneHealth is, but he feels it is “the interconnection of the health of us humans, and the health of other animals on our planet and that entire ecosystem that we find ourselves in”.