Great Ape Health in Tropical Africa: Emerging diseases, conservation and evolutionary perspectives on human health (GATECEP)

热带非洲的类人猿健康：人类健康的新发疾病、保护和进化观点 (GATECEP)

• 批准号: 380914385
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Fabian Leendertz
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/380914385?language=en
• 关键词: Great; Ape; Health; Tropical; Africa

Zoonotic pathogens pose a serious threat to global human health. The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the devastating impact the spill-over of a novel pathogen from an animal reservoir into the human population can have. Surveillance systems allowing for the early detection of pathogen circulation in wildlife are urgently needed to allow rapid responses from local and global public health systems. Due to a high degree of biodiversity and rapid ecological changes, Sub-Saharan Africa has been pinpointed as a major source of novel pathogens. Our innovative approach has proven successful; it makes use of a natural experiment – using our closest living relatives, the wild great apes, living in high biodiversity areas as sentinels for relevant pathogens. Through research and tourism projects great apes are habituated to humans and can be more easily studied. In the first funding period of the GATECEP project we established such sentinel surveillance programs at six sites in four countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, and Gabon), and collected and published data on a number of zoonotic diseases, including monkeypox, anthrax, yaws, and leprosy. We also gathered data on pathogens threatening the survival of endangered species and contributed to protecting these great ape populations from the COVID-19 pandemic. We provided intensive training to local PhD students in safe sample collection, recording of behavioural data, and a suite of laboratory approaches. We set up field laboratories for rapid on-site diagnostics and improved capacities at national laboratories. In the proposed prolongation, we will continue surveillance for novel diseases through our approach and follow up on clusters of unique symptoms for which no infectious agent has yet been identified. We will investigate the ecology of the most important pathogens identified by using further field techniques and molecular tools that allow for an exploration of pathogen sources (e.g. through great ape predation of animals or environmental exposure) and a more detailed understanding of disease transmission dynamics in our closest living relatives. Our investigations will challenge classic hypotheses regarding the origins of some major human pathogens and shed light on the role of the environment as a source for these pathogens. Through the inclusion of three satellite sites in Guinea Bissau and the Republic of Congo, where symptoms of these key pathogens were also observed, as well as broader training of people working in other protected areas in the partner countries, we will be able to test for geographic patterns in pathogen phylogenies and detect between-species transmission events that would otherwise remain obscured in sparse phylogenies. This prolongation includes further opportunities to strengthen the scientific careers of local scientists while transferring skills and resources for surveillance activities at local institutions.

人畜共患病原体对全球人类健康构成严重威胁。2019冠状病毒病大流行凸显了新型病原体从动物宿主外溢到人类可能产生的破坏性影响。迫切需要能够早期发现野生动物中病原体传播的监测系统，以便地方和全球公共卫生系统能够迅速作出反应。由于高度的生物多样性和快速的生态变化，撒哈拉以南非洲已被确定为新型病原体的主要来源。我们的创新方法已被证明是成功的；它利用了一个自然实验——用我们最亲近的亲戚，生活在生物多样性高的地区的野生类人猿作为相关病原体的哨兵。通过研究和旅游项目，类人猿已经习惯了人类，可以更容易地研究。在GATECEP项目的第一个资助期内，我们在四个国家（Côte科特迪瓦、刚果民主共和国、中非共和国和加蓬）的六个地点建立了这样的哨点监测项目，并收集和公布了一些人畜共患疾病的数据，包括猴痘、炭疽、雅兹病和麻风病。我们还收集了威胁濒危物种生存的病原体的数据，并为保护这些类人猿种群免受COVID-19大流行的影响做出了贡献。我们为本地博士生提供安全样本采集、行为数据记录和一套实验室方法方面的强化培训。我们建立了现场实验室进行快速现场诊断，并提高了国家实验室的能力。在拟议的延长期间，我们将通过我们的方法继续监测新疾病，并跟进尚未确定感染源的独特症状群集。我们将通过使用进一步的现场技术和分子工具来研究最重要病原体的生态学，这些工具允许探索病原体来源（例如，通过类人猿捕食动物或环境暴露），并更详细地了解我们最亲近的近亲的疾病传播动态。我们的研究将挑战关于一些主要人类病原体起源的经典假设，并阐明环境作为这些病原体来源的作用。通过纳入几内亚比绍和刚果共和国的三个卫星站点，以及对在伙伴国家其他保护区工作的人员进行更广泛的培训，我们将能够测试病原体系统发育的地理模式，并发现物种间传播事件，否则这些事件将在稀疏的系统发育中被掩盖。这种延长包括进一步有机会加强当地科学家的科学事业，同时为当地机构的监测活动转移技能和资源。