University researchers have received substantial funding for a groundbreaking new study which will help to prevent the transmission of fever-causing illnesses between livestock and people in northern Tanzania.

The project is one of three to receive a share of £3.5m in funding from Ecology of Infectious Diseases Initiative by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK and the US National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in the United States.

The £534,000 project will investigate the transmission of three fever-causing bacteria which together account for 11 times more admissions to hospitals in the area than malaria. Currently, very little is known about how leptospirosis, Q fever and brucellosis are transmitted between animals and spread to humans.Laboratory 

It is estimated that around 75% of recently-emerging diseases are ‘zoonoses’, infections which can be transmitted between animals and humans and pose a serious threat to both human health and global food security.

Professor Sarah Cleaveland, of the University’s Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, said: “This is the first time that an integrated study of the impact and social ecology of bacterial zoonoses has been undertaken. It has a great deal of potential to save lives, reduce suffering and improve the quality of life of local people.

“In addition to causing harm to humans, zoonoses can have a major impact on livestock production, causing reproductive problems and loss of milk production.

“Given that most households in Tanzania are heavily reliant for livestock for food, income, and social capital, these diseases can have a devastating impact.

“We’ll be working with well-established medical, veterinary, ecology and social research groups in Tanzania to ensure that we can build the fullest picture possible of how these diseases are spread.”

Experts from the University’s veterinary medicine and geography departments will work together with local organisations to examine a wide spectrum of factors which lead to the spread of disease and develop methods which could help control and prevent infection. The project will also involve support from academics at Duke University in North Carolina.

First published: 16 September 2011

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