$2.5 Million Grant Funds Study of How Infectious Diseases become Epidemics

November 25, 2015 — 

Two Kansas State University researchers are exploring how diseases spread across long distances in an effort to learn how to better control the next human, animal or plant epidemic. [Source: KSU News Release, November 18, 2015]

The two professors are part of a larger group including colleagues from Oregon State University, North Carolina State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and two universities in England. The group was awarded a $2.5 million grant through the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases, or EEID, program jointly funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health and the U.K.'s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The program supports projects that study how large-scale environmental events such as habitat destruction or pollution alter risks of viral, parasitic and bacterial disease emergence.

The Kansas State University team will study data for vector-borne infectious diseases to model how these types of epidemics spread. Vector-borne diseases are spread by infectious microbes transmitted by ticks, mosquitos or other insects or parasites. Kansas State University researchers are particularly interested in the role of long-distance dispersal in the spread of diseases. They will evaluate the efficacy of different control methods, such as limiting animal movements or reducing the vector population. As models are compared and refined, they will help researchers develop rules of thumb for controlling outbreaks.