International partners start research for better zoonotic outbreak preparedness in The Gambia

SENZOR team members and local field staff during field visits of potential study sites in The Gambia. Photo: RKI

The project called “A social-ecological network approach to understanding zoonotic outbreak risk” (SENZOR) started with a kick-off meeting in The Gambia in September 2023. Members of the interdisciplinary project consortium came together for a two-day workshop and framing field familiarisation visits. The project partner in The Gambia, the Medical Research Unit (MRC) of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), hosted international team members in Fajara. They came from the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of infectious Diseases (ACEGID) at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, the L'Institut de recherche pour le developpement (IRD) in France and from the Centre for International Health Protection (ZIG) at the Robert Koch Institute. Team members of the National History Museum in London virtually attended the discussions.

Presentations of scientific insights of the interdisciplinary team members as part of the kick-off meeting. Photo: MRC

The workshop brought the newly established partners together to work on the joint research protocol for the four-year project duration of the various interlinked disciplines. Framing the two-day workshop were field visits to the villages in the research region of the project that included anthropological fieldwork exercises and exemplary veterinary sampling. This fieldwork streamlined methodologies and enriched mutual understanding among the researchers with different scientific backgrounds in anthropology, veterinary sciences, ecology and modelling.

Village visit and sample exercise in a potential study site in the Central River Region of The Gambia. Photo: RKI

About SENZOR:

SENZOR’s aim is to better understand the risk of zoonotic outbreaks. For this there is the need to create a more comprehensive understanding of local scale infection dynamics. Embedded in the project is the training of one PhD candidate in each of the partner institutions ACEGID, MRC, LSHTM and RKI. This interdisciplinary cohort conducts the fieldwork and data analysis of the project in close collaboration.

The project samples small bodied wild animals, domestic animals, and humans, in a systematic, structured sampling regime in two landscape types (highly agricultural and seminatural) over three years in The Gambia and Nigeria. For a select group of high-risk viral pathogens, the project builds contact networks for all local actors involved in transmission. It employs participatory modelling and ethnographic methods to gain a deeper insight into how humans interact with this network. The project uses a socio-ecological system modelling approach to predict risks both across the landscapes and in plausible future scenarios to inform outbreak preparedness and management strategies. Through this, a better understanding how pathogen contact networks vary over time and space is supposed to help prepare for, predict and prevent future outbreaks and pandemics. SENZOR is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

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