New health centre focused on mother-child infectious diseases underway in Quebec

A Centre of Excellence in Infectious Diseases dedicated to mother-child patients will be created in Quebec due to a joint initiative between the Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine.

The research centre will focus on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases for pregnant women and prematurely born children – particularly for vulnerable clients.

This will be the first specialized centre of its kind for this clientele in Canada.

The allocated budget is estimated to be around $30 million. Currently, $5 million has been invested by Intact Financial Corporation, which will allow for the launch of the centre’s activities, including hiring the researchers and clinicians.

“This is largely research that will be used to change the delivery of services in hospitals, but it’s not a clinic,” said Intact Financial Corporation CEO Charles Brindamour. “When we look at how the pandemic impacted society, it’s clear to us that to help with resilience, infectious diseases are an area that deserves a lot more support, research and analysis.”

“It’s really a joint effort where researchers from the University [of Montreal] are working with practitioners from the [Sainte-Justine] hospital to develop a better understanding of the impact of infectious diseases in the population,” added Intact Canada CEO Louis Gagnon.

He explained that the centre is a specialized research infrastructure to better prepare the health system for future pandemics. “Especially for vulnerable places, municipalities and communities more vulnerable to these infections,” he added.

“Despite advances in medicine and public health, the challenges related to infectious diseases are numerous and growing. […] The Centre of Excellence in Infectious Diseases will allow us to better support all populations, including the most vulnerable, and to optimize our approaches to research, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infections, to transform the lives of generations,” said Isabelle Demers, President and CEO of CHU Sainte-Justine, in a press release.

Brindamour is also the co-chair of the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation’s “Voir grand” fundraising campaign. He pointed out that mother-child patients have a different dynamic because the risk of transmission is much greater.

“In this context, it deserves a different angle in terms of research, but it goes beyond mother and child, we want to support the centre of excellence to properly integrate vulnerable populations, we can think of disadvantaged people, Aboriginal people, [people from] immigration. We want to ensure that the resources dedicated to research are more oriented towards those who are most impacted,” he said.

Gagnon, who is also the co-chair of the Université de Montréal’s “L’heure est brave” fundraising campaign, said the donation from Intact Financial Corporation, where he and Brindamour contributed $1 million as a personal donation, is the only contribution to the centre so far.

“We are the ones starting the program and we hope to influence others to invest in this program,” he said.

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–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews