Infectious Disease

Mosquito-transmitted viruses have emerged unexpectedly causing explosive epidemics, millions of infections, and death. Early detection of these viruses is challenging as they emerge and spread infecting many before being noticed. To address this shortcoming, we propose to evaluate a surveillance system based on the detection of viruses in mosquito saliva. Mosquitoes expectorate viruses in their saliva during sugar feeding. A mosquito trap that detects viruses in saliva expectorated by mosquitoes has recently been developed.

Jacqueline Weyer of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa and Jinal Bhiman of Wits Health Consortium (Pty) Ltd also in South Africa will leverage a rapid monoclonal antibody (mAb) isolation and screening pipeline to develop diagnostics that differentiate between pathogens to support epidemic responses. Africa’s burden of many zoonoses and vector-borne diseases (VBD), such as Lassa fever and yellow fever, remains largely unknown, mainly due to diagnostic costs and limited access to reagents.

Mai Le of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Vietnam will expand Vietnam’s systematic surveillance and sequencing capacities to detect potential pandemic pathogens, including influenza and coronaviruses, and incorporate agnostic sequencing of conventionally undiagnosed pathogens. They will build on the existing infrastructure of the influenza-like illnesses sentinel surveillance network, which collects samples from four outpatient clinics, to include testing for both influenza A and B and SARS-CoV-2 viruses, with the possibility to expand.

Chhorvann Chhea of the National Institute of Public Health in Cambodia will expand Cambodia’s Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) surveillance network by integrating metagenomic next-generation sequencing to better diagnose and monitor severe respiratory infections. Pneumonia is the leading cause of death globally in children under five years old, with the majority of severe cases classified as viral.

Audrey Dubot-Pérès of the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Research Unit (LOMWRU) in Lao PDR will establish a pilot respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) genomic surveillance system to determine disease burden and monitor strain circulation in Lao PDR. RSV is the leading cause of viral pneumonia in young children in low-income countries. Accurate data on disease burden, transmission and viral evolution are critical to successfully introduce emerging vaccines and therapies.

Orapan Sripichai of the National Institute of Health of Thailand in Thailand will engage a national network of laboratories for the genomic surveillance of Salmonella, involving sequencing clinical isolates to characterize strains, virulence factors and mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance. Salmonella infection is prevalent in Thailand and can be life-threatening. The emergence of multidrug-resistant Salmonella strains in Southeast Asia is an additional major concern.

Pragya Yadav of the Indian Council of Medical Research - National Institute of Virology in India will strengthen genomic and epidemiological surveillance in different locations across India to enhance preparedness against high-risk viral diseases. With India's extreme geo-climatic diversity, it is under constant threat of emerging and reemerging viral infections.

Rifky Waluyajati Rachman of the West Java Provincial Health Laboratory in Indonesia will employ targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) to support genomic surveillance of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in Indonesia. Indonesia has the second highest number of TB cases globally and a growing burden of largely undetected multidrug-resistant TB, yet no drug resistance surveillance in place. They will perform targeted NGS on over 5,000 positive sputum samples to more accurately estimate drug-resistant TB prevalence.

Aida Sadikh Badiane of the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar in Senegal will use a metabolomics platform to identify cervicovaginal metabolites and inflammatory mediators associated with high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, which cause the majority of cervical cancer cases, in Senegalese women. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in sub-Saharan Africa. Metabolic and immune markers could enable more effective diagnoses for these diseases than the current methods used in low-resource settings.

Simon Kariuki of the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kenya will use an antibody platform to characterize children's immune responses to the new malaria vaccine to determine the impact of any accompanying infections. The WHO recently approved a new malaria vaccine that will mainly be deployed in sub-Saharan Africa. During its development, HIV-infected children were found to mount weaker immune responses. Helminth infections, which are prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, are also suspected to negatively impact vaccine efficacy.