F-105 Surveillance of viral zoonoses in Africa
Authors: Mweene Aaron , Takada Ayato 
Published: April 2019

In recent years, the increased rates in the mergence and re-emergence of highly infectious diseases of humans and animals, with high health and socio-economic impacts and serious biosafety and biosecurity challenges have been observed, worldwide. In Africa, highly dangerous pathogens even unpredictably re-emerge or emerge in new geographic areas or are newly discovered. Most recent examples include discovery of highly pathogenic Old World arenavirus (Lujo virus) following air transport of a fatally ill patient from Zambia to South Africa and the spread of Zaire ebolavirus associated with severe and widespread outbreaks of Ebola viral haemorrhagic fever in West Africa in 2014. To strengthen the research and surveillance capacity for viral zoonosis in Zambia, a 5 year (2013–2018) project entitled “Surveillance of viral zoonoses in Africa” was implemented through collaborative research between Zambia and Japanese Research Institutions. This is supported through a Technical Cooperation Project by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)/Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) under the framework of the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS). The University of Zambia (UNZA) with financing from the World Bank has established the Africa Centre of Excellence for Infectious Diseases of Humans and Animals (ACEIDHA) to address some of the public health challenges. ACEIDHA endeavours to achieve the regional goal of understanding the natural history of some infectious diseases, through new evidence-based, cost effective, multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral, and collaborative strategies to be implemented by well-trained and skilled scientists. It will, subsequently, increase the sub-region's human resource capacity to deal with these problems by training a pool of scientists at MSc and PhD levels. Recently, ACEIDHA has been accepted as a GVN Affiliate Centre of Excellence. This status will enable ACEIDHA to better train virologists at MSc, PhD and post-doctoral levels. It will, further, help to facilitate interactions of other GVN members with a number of partners in Africa, which is critical to GVN's mission in preparing the world for future outbreaks of viral diseases.

Considering that zoonoses cannot be eradicated, it is imperative to take pre-emptive action to determine the circulation of the related pathogens in the environment. In this regard, biological samples from potential hosts (wild animals, livestock and human) are collected and examined for the status of the known and unknowns pathogens. We, also, embark on establishment an/or improvement of detection methods for known viral zoonoses. In this regard, inter alia, a simple, reliable, low cost immunochromatographic assay, named QuickNaviTMEbola, for rapid diagnosis of Ebola virus disease (EVD) has been developed. Furthermore, working together in a multidisciplinary One Health platform, activities are conducted to identify natural reservoirs for the elucidation of transmission pathways of zoonotic viruses and risk factors as well as drivers for emergence of known and/or unknown viruses in communities and our work has potential for discovery of novel viruses originating from animals. Incidentally, since the outbreak of 2014 EVD in West Africa, all samples from cases of suspected EVD in Zambia are tested under our project working with the Ministry responsible for Health in Zambia.

This work contributes to building the capacity for Africa to be better prepared for any eventual outbreak of highly infectious diseases of humans and animals.