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PULLMAN, Washington – To better identify and prevent future pandemics, WSU has entered into a cooperative agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to lead a new five-year global project of approximately $ 125 million.
The USAID Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses, or DEEP VZN, project will strengthen the scientific capacities of partner countries to safely detect and characterize unknown viruses that may spread from wildlife and domestic animals to human populations.
“To make sure the world is better prepared for these infectious disease events, which are likely to occur more frequently as wilderness areas become more and more fragmented, we need to be prepared,” said Felix Lankester, researcher USAID DEEP VZN Principal and Associate Professor. with the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Health. “We will work not only to detect viruses, but also to build capacity in other countries, so that the United States can work with them in doing this important work.”
The project plans to partner with up to 12 targeted countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to carry out large-scale animal surveillance programs in their own countries, safely, using their own monitoring facilities. laboratory.
DEEP VZN builds on previous work by dramatically scaling up USAID’s efforts to understand where and how viruses spread from animals to humans. With over 70 percent of viral outbreaks in people originating from animals, understanding future threats helps protect the United States as well as the global community.
The project will focus on finding previously unknown pathogens from three viral families that have great potential for viral spread from animals to humans: coronaviruses, the family that includes SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID -19; filoviruses, such as Ebola virus; and paramyxoviruses which include viruses that cause measles and Nipah.
The objectives are ambitious: to collect more than 800,000 samples over the five years of the project, most of which will come from wildlife; then to detect whether viruses of the target families are present in the samples. When these are found, researchers will determine the zoonotic potential of viruses, or the transferability from animals to humans.
This process is expected to produce 8,000 to 12,000 new viruses, which researchers will screen and then sequence the genomes of those posing the greatest risk to animal and human health.
To achieve these goals, WSU will leverage the strengths of a consortium of partners, including the virology expertise of the University of Washington and the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, as well as data management. and the in-country expertise of public health nonprofit organizations PATH and FHI 360. WSU and partners have established a presence in countries in the target regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
WSU will also draw on its own strengths in veterinary medicine and the field expertise of the Allen School for Global Health, which has carried out extensive work on the transmission of infectious diseases on a global scale.
“Our approach is to collaborate with national partners, working side by side with their scientists and institutions. Said Tom Kawula, director of the Allen School for Global Health at the WSU. “Our consortium partners are helping to extend our reach and have the same philosophy of working with people as well as with existing structures and expertise in each country.” One of the consortium’s first tasks is to select the exact countries for DEEP-VZN based on their high risk of emerging infectious disease, their ability to safely conduct viral discovery work, and their commitment to sharing data with global partners.
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