Involvement of ITM in zoonoses projects

1. Institutional collaborations

• Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, Pretoria
  Institutional Collaboration to establish a sustainable basis for the development and transfer of appropriate methods to control important endemic parasitic diseases of livestock and zoonoses in the SADC Region. 

• Centro Internacional de Zoonosis, Quito
  Capacity strengthening of Centro Internacional de Zoonosis, to increase the capacity for diagnosis, epidemiological monitoring, data analysis and disease control.
• National Institute of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology in Vietnam and Cambodia 
  Institutional strengthening and regional networking of the National Institutes of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology in Vietnam and Cambodia to strengthen the regional capacities in biomedical and epidemiological research required for the surveillance and prevention of malaria and other parasitic diseases in Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries.

2. Other projects

• EU FP-7 ICONZ (integrated control of neglected zoonoses) project
  The overall strategic objective of ICONZ is to improve human and animal health, alleviate poverty and contribute to the millennium goals. To achieve this, a number of actions are required to ensure that the current position regarding neglected zoonoses in terms of the burdens on communities and relevant research are understood. Building on this knowledge, new technologies and research outcomes should be utilised to improve the control of neglected zoonoses by developing improved tools and identifying the situations in which they can be employed. All of this must be communicated to stakeholder, and particularly policy advisors of affected countries.
• VLIR project in Gambia and Senegal 
  Epidemiology and control of zoonotic infections in The Gambia and Senegal: strengthen the capacity and capability to diagnose and control zoonotic diseases of livestock.
• Epidemiology and burden of neurocysticercosis in Burkina Faso
  Development of field-based methodologies for epidemiological studies of cysticercosis and neurocystocercosis, to collect pilot data on the prevalence of epilepsy and of neurocysticercosis in rural farming communities and to enhance the capacity to conduct epidemiological investigations of infectious agents with neurological involvement (completed)

3. PhD grants

• VLIR: biomarkers for Taenia solium
  Identification of biomarkers associated with cysticercosis, taking into account the presence of viable or dead cysticerci and development of a simple and cheap bioassay for the detection of porcine and human cysticercosis, based on selected biomarkers (completed in December 08)
• Gates project in Peru
• Ciuf project in Ecuador
• ITM project in Niger