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The Epicenter for Emerging Infectious Disease Intelligence brings together a consortium of leading research institutions to advance an understanding of viral emergence from wildlife in forests and rapidly urbanizing environments. The work will enhance preparedness for disease emergence events in the Congo and Amazon Basin forest regions and support response efforts at the source of emergence. The multidisciplinary team has expertise in infectious disease epidemiology, human and animal health, virology, medical entomology, disease modeling, and capacity strengthening. Activities will include integrating human, animal, and vector surveillance to enable insights into cross-species disease transmission and facilitating responsiveness to evolving needs that impact country, regional, and global emerging infectious disease risk. In the Epicenter’s initial work, the team will investigate the epidemiology of arboviruses and filoviruses, which include emerging viruses currently threatening global health security. To evaluate disease transmission dynamics at the initial emergence in humans, surveillance will be conducted in forest communities at the point of virus spillover from contact with wildlife and mosquitos. The EpiCenter team will also investigate these viruses in the second stage of emergence, in urban centers peripherally connected to forests, where viruses have adapted to human-to-human transmission (by direct or vector-borne transmission). As part of the CREID Network, this work will advance an understanding of cross-species transmission dynamics for emerging viral threats, as well as optimize innovative and deployable surveillance and testing strategies to strengthen infectious disease surveillance to enable rapid response to outbreaks.

This Research Center is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 1U01AI151814

• Contact:
• eeidi@ucdavis.edu
• @EpiCenterUCD