description
- With the increasing impact of mankind’s activities on the natural environment, disease naturally harboured by wild animals, both within the geographical limits of the EU and elsewhere, are becoming increasingly significant both for public health and health of livestock, in addition to having direct concerns for wild animal species. We are proposing a project which will combine (i) technological development to enable high through-put array-based screening of samples from a wide variety of wild animals with (ii) surveillance of terrestrial, aerial and marine wild animal species within Europe and from countries which act as portals of disease entry into the EU, (iii) epidemiological analysis and risk assessment using data generated during the project and from other sources, and (iv) development and proposal of a model framework for disease surveillance within Europe developed in parallel with the burgeoning systems in North America. The proposal will place the EU at the centre of wildlife disease surveillance and also enable the translation of high throughput array-based technologies into human and veterinary medicine.