Ontario wants to get a head start on preparing for the next pandemic.

Public Health Ontario is looking   hire a Toronto-based company to monitor global infectious diseases to predict where and when the next big outbreak will occur and how the province can respond.

” BlueDot” was founded by U of T professor Dr. Kamran Khan- also a clinician-scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak.

The company made headlines in the early days of the COVID pandemic for raising alarm bells about a disease outbreak in Wuhan ahead of some governments and global public health organizations.

The company uses  artificial intelligence and monitors different sources of data for potential disease outbreaks.