📋 Tender Overview
Project Type
Coordinated Research Project
Project Code
D32036
CRP
2295
Approved Date
5 May 2021
Status
Active - Ongoing
Start Date
13 July 2022
Expected End Date
1 October 2027
Participating Countries
ArgentinaAustraliaAustriaBelgiumChinaCroatiaGermanyIndonesiaMoroccoMozambiqueNamibiaSenegalSerbiaSloveniaUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandUnited States of America
Description
In the last few decades, multiple animal and zoonotic diseases affected animal production and health, public health, people’s livelihood, and the global economy. Several examples are the appearance of the bluetongue (BT), Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD), African Swine Fever (ASF), and African Horse Sickness (AHS) in latitudes where they have never appeared before. Moreover, recent outbreaks of avian influenza H5N1, H5N8, and H7N9 all over the world, Ebola in Africa, Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), SARS-CoV-1, MERS, and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemics, have a long-term and far-reaching influence on the global population, as well as the world economy.
Surveillance and early detection technologies are the critical rings in the chain of disease control. They enable the rapid discovery of the source and movement of the pathogens and the analysis, planning, and decision-making during the design and implementation of preventive or control measures.
The IAEA has considerable experience building Member States' capacities to detect and characterize pathogens early and diagnose diseases rapidly and accurately. Moreover, the IAEA has developed or contributed to early detection and characterization tools, recognized nowadays as international standards for testing and characterization.
In the last VETLAB Network related CRP, the research partners have validated and verified several multi-target (multiple disease) techniques for syndromic diseases, established a proven workflows for the Sanger sequencing service, developed the iVetNet information platform to an advanced (but still not finalized) level and collected significant amounts of biological materials for use as positive controls in the serological and molecular techniques.
Technology development over the last few decades has enabled miniaturization and multiplexing of the diagnostic assays, thus opening new windows to understanding the ecology and the evolution of zoonotic pathogens. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and metagenomics-based approaches (MBAs) will enable both new pathogens discovery and help find potential reservoirs and additional susceptible hosts for known zoonotic pathogens.
Most of the NGS and MBAs are currently available to advanced laboratories and are not (or are really) accessible to laboratories in developing countries. This CRP aims to develop and validate standardized workflows that will enable laboratories in developing countries to access NGS and MBAs, establish unified procedures for raw data analysis, sequence assembly, and phylogenetic reconstructions. These workflow
