UK-Brazil Joint Centre for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (CADDE)

最近，巴西受到昆虫传播病毒（虫媒病毒）意外暴发流行的影响，最显著的是寨卡病毒、基孔肯雅病毒、登革热病毒和黄热病病毒。寨卡疫情在巴西造成了巨大的经济负担，而城市蚊子在巴西广泛存在，这凸显了对疾病传播进行准确预测的迫切需要，尤其是在人口密集的大地区。我们的英国-巴西伙伴关系（CADDE）将加强和扩大现有的良好合作，目的是预测和控制巴西未来的虫媒病毒流行。我们的愿景是使CADDE成为南美洲卓越的战略研究中心，重点是根据基因组、流行病学和地理证据提供及时的分析，以预测和控制虫媒病毒在今天和将来的传播。我们的研究问题包括：1)哪些虫媒病毒在巴西的人类、蚊子和水库种群中传播？2)虫媒病毒在非流行期间在何处以及如何持续存在？3)流行虫媒病毒的遗传多样性及其基因组突变的生物学和医学意义是什么？4)是什么因素控制着将一种新的虫媒病毒单次引入人群，转变为大规模流行病？ 5)我们能多快发现和描述这种流行病，以及如何最好地作出反应？将结合媒介和宿主的主动病毒监测与献血者的血清阳性率调查（以确定病毒基因组学、传播和免疫等特征）。新型便携式基因组测序技术和现代实时流行病学分析将应用于巴西最重要的虫媒病毒。利用能够统一基因组学和流行病学信息的现代技术，CADDE将加强公共卫生行动的证据基础，并加强巴西卫生系统应对新出现的虫媒病毒性疾病的能力。我们将通过在实地流行病学、实验室检测、使用便携式基因组技术以及计算和统计方法方面培训研究科学家和公共卫生人员来改造当地能力。

Recently, Brazil has been affected by unexpected and explosive epidemics of insect-transmitted viruses (arboviruses), most notably Zika, chikungunya, dengue, and yellow fever viruses. The huge economic burden of the Zika epidemic in Brazil and the widespread presence of urban mosquitos in the country highlight an urgent need for accurate predictions of disease spread, particularly in large, densely populated regions. Our UK-Brazil Partnership (CADDE) will enhance and expand an excellent existing collaborations, with the aim of anticipating and controlling future epidemics of arboviruses in Brazil. It is our vision for CADDE to become a strategic centre of excellence for research in South America that focuses on providing timely analysis, based on genomic, epidemiological and geographic evidence, to anticipate and control transmission of arboviruses, today and in the future.. Our research questions include: 1) What arboviruses circulate in human, mosquito and reservoir populations in Brazil? 2) Where and how do arboviruses persist during non-epidemic periods? 3) What are the biological and medical implications of the genetic diversity of circulating arboviruses and of mutations in their genomes? 4) What factors control the transformation of a single introduction of a new arbovirus into human populations into sizeable epidemic, and 5) how quickly can we detect and characterise such epidemics, and how best to respond? Active virus surveillance in vectors and reservoirs will be combined with seroprevalence surveys in blood donors (to characterise features such as virus genomics, transmission, and immunity). Novel portable genome sequencing technologies and modern real-time epidemiological analyses will be applied to the most important arboviruses in Brazil. Using modern techniques that can unify the information from genomics and epidemiology, CADDE will strengthen the evidence base for public health actions, and strengthen the capacity of Brazilian health system to respond to emerging arboviral diseases. We will transform local capacity by training research scientists and public health personnel in field epidemiology, laboratory testing, the use of portable genomic technologies, and computational and statistical methods.