Disease Surveillance

Coronaviruses common to animals may ‘spillover’ into people more frequently than once thought, according to new research from UF and Haitian investigators.

UF researchers led a comprehensive study estimating the proportion of food- and waterborne diseases in the US attributable to five major transmission pathways.

Behind the scenes in mid-March, a group of researchers, students and lab technicians across campus came together and built a high throughput testing lab in the Emerging Pathogens Institute in just 10 days. “The timeline was so compressed, something like this would normally take at least a month,” says UF molecular biologist Tony Maurelli.

New research by EPI’s Burton Singer quantifies how civil disruption and violence has unraveled Ebola control measures in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province. His work demonstrates causative links between ongoing regional civil strife and upticks in Ebola incidence due to cycles of disrupted disease control.

New research from the EPI and UF’s College of Public Health & Health Professions found that exposing the sexually-transmitted bacterial pathogen Chlamydia to fosmidomycin — an antibiotic which is usually lethal to bacteria — causes Chlamydia to enter a protective bunker-like “persistent” state. The findings could bolster future efforts to intentionally disrupt the molecular changes that induce chlamydial persistence, leading to the prevention of chronic chlamydial infections.

Whole genome sequencing allows researchers to quantify diversification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis within a host, showing that the individual bacteria comprising an infection are not all identical clones. Using a known TB cluster, Emerging Pathogens Institute researchers confirm that hosts can transmit all — or just some — of the genetic diversity unique to their mTB population to a new victim.

Newly published maps reveal, for the first time, where anthrax poses global risks to people, livestock and wildlife. The maps are the result of 15 years of data collection covering 70 countries compiled by Emerging Pathogens Institute associate research professor Jason Blackburn and his colleagues.

EPI investigator, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences mathematics professor, Burton Singer has developed a model describing the spatial dynamics of Ebola transmission and the efficacy of its vaccine.

New research by EPI and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences medical geographers offers Ecuadorian health officials a sneak preview of where mosquito-borne diseases may shift into the Andean mountain foothills as our planet’s climate warms into the midcentury.

Several cases of malaria have been confirmed in regions of Ecuador and Peru where the disease was once considered eliminated. New research by EPI investigator and medical geographer Sadie Ryan ties these cases to the collapse of Venezuela’s public health infrastructure and subsequent flow of emigrants through neighboring countries.