Edinburgh Infectious Diseases
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Infectious disease epidemiology in Africa, India and the UK - Mark Bronsvoort

Prof Bronsvoort leads the Epidemiology, Economics and Risk Assessment (EERA) group based at the Roslin Institute.

The group has a broad range of interests in infectious disease epidemiology and its application in Africa, India and the United Kingdom.  The group is particularly interested in using One Health approaches to bovine and zoonotic tuberculosis in Low and Middle Income Countries with various activities from accurate estimates of disease prevalence, phylogenetics and linking livestock trade networks to dissemination of strains in Africa.   

Mar's lab is also studying the impact of co-infections such as fluke, to the performance of current and novel diagnostics in these settings and the potential for reducing outbreaks through genetic selection and breeding programmes.

The group currently has a programme of work with the charity/NGO Mission Rabies in India and a number of countries in Africa. These projects include evaluating the efficacy of large-scale rabies vaccination programmes, evaluating oral bait usage as an alternative to net captures, the impact of educational programmes and the development of mSurveillance programmes to improve tracing of bite cases.

EERA has also been part of a long standing consortium called EPIC which is one of the Scottish Governments Centres of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks.  The Centre provides a wide range of statistical, modeling and social science support to Scottish Government policies and have provided real time support during a number of outbreaks and disease incursions in the UK including for Foot and Mouth Disease, Avian Influenza, Schamllenburg virus, West Nile virus and Blue Tongue virus.