About this Research Topic

Background

Infectious disease surveillance is a vital component in the response to disease outbreaks and the subsequent development of effective countermeasures.

Cooperative research (including work funded through global biosecurity engagement programs) contributes heavily to health security capacity building, which enhances surveillance capabilities in detection and identification of emerging/re-emerging pathogens. Building trust among partners is essential and requires a commitment to implement research outputs in practice. Measuring outputs, evaluating improvements and justifying continual investments is essential but not straightforward. The current COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the need for faster turnaround to meet technical, logistical, and production demands. The challenge of responding and mitigating current infectious disease outbreaks further increases the need to bolster health security.

Viruses, bacteria, and fungi are all potential causes of emerging/re-emerging human infections. In recent years, a large number of emerging pathogens that caused epidemics are viruses, including Ebola/Marburg, Nipah, RVF, Zika, SARS, MERS and now SARS-CoV-2. The spread of such disease has increased due to factors such as climate change and globalization through the means of trade and travel.

The aim of this research topic is to highlight the essential link between surveillance and cooperative research focusing on partnerships with scientists working in countries less represented in scientific literature. Articles dealing with surveillance and mitigation of seasonal and/or endemic diseases (e.g. respiratory, arboviral) will be welcome in the form of papers that include work from ongoing programs, such as surveillance of seasonal respiratory diseases and how such work pivoted to address COVID-19. These papers will highlight original research and related work in reviews, methods, perspectives, and editorials, covering a range of disciplines, sectors, and geographic locations.

This Research Topic addresses:
• Cooperative research that addresses applications for infectious disease surveillance: diagnostic tools, methods (qPCR, NGS, CRISPR), epidemiology (risk maps, models, prediction), and medical counter-measures (antibodies, drugs, vaccines).
• Training that enhances capabilities: laboratory diagnostics, epidemiology, biosafety and biosecurity; and methods to improve and implement protection and decontamination.
• Cases for implementing mobile technology (e.g. apps, social media) to enhance infectious disease surveil-lance and related examples of multi-sectoral engagement (e.g. agriculture, food, animal health sectors) and public-private partnerships.
• Lessons learned, especially those related to reducing biological threats and maturing capabilities (national health and laboratory planning); and continuing challenges such as promoting scientific transparency, data and material sharing, sustaining funds, and disseminating information.

Potential Authors: researchers and implementers, including those in global biosecurity engagement programs; highlighting multi-disciplinary work and multi-sectoral partnerships.
• Public sector: national, state, local level institutes and agencies.
• Private sector: commercial, industry.
• Academia, including non-profit and charitable organizations.

Acknowledgement: We would like to acknowledge Dr. Kairat Tabynov, Dr. Falgunee Parekh, and Dr. Kenneth Yeh, who have contributed to the preparation of the proposal for this Research Topic and who will act as Research Topic Coordinators.

Keywords: Infectious disease surveillance, Cooperative research, Biosecurity, Capability building, COVID-19

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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