Endemic zoonoses such as brucellosis, leptospirosis, rickettsioses, bartonellosis, Rift Valley fever and many others, pose considerable challenges for clinicians in both human and animal health. They frequently present with general symptoms that are shared with many infectious diseases common in the tropics, and are hard to differentiate clinically. Furthermore, the lack of diagnostic tools that can help differentiate these infections results in large scale mis-diagnosis of fevers, pneumonias and other acute human infections and an almost complete lack of diagnosis of infection in livestock in LMICs. As a consequence, the true burden of endemic zoonoses is largely underappreciated and awareness among clinicians and policymakers remains limited. For example, Crump et al (2013) in Tanzania found many febrile cases classed as malaria, to be zoonoses and in over 50% of febrile illness no cause was identified. This creates a huge knowledge/data gap that results in extensive misuse of antibiotics in both humans and livestock driving the antimicrobial resistance crisis and also an information blackhole for public health and livestock disease prioritization and disease control planning.
The specific objectives of this PhD are:
1) Establish a diagnostic metagenomic (mNGS) pipeline and demonstrate its use to identify zoonotic pathogens in clinical and screening samples from humans and animals
2) Quantify the major causes of febrile illness in the human population attending the regional and Baptist Mission hospitals in North West Cameroon
3) Using this develop a testing algorithm for use in resource limited settings and estimate its efficiency and cost benefits
This pilot project builds on links with the Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory and Baptist Mission hospital network in Cameroon. We wish to implement a metagenomics approach using the MinION platform and the SURPI pipeline (Greninger et al 2015) to pilot specific pathogen diagnosis and test its validity in febrile patients against conventional diagnoses.
A webinar will be held on Tuesday 14th December at 13.00hrs (UK time) to assist you in the application process and tell you a little more about studying for a PhD with us. It will also give you an opportunity to ask any questions you may have. If interested in joining us please send your name and email address to [Email Address Removed] by Friday 10th December and we will send you a link to the on line meeting
ALL APPLICATION PROCEDURES MUST BE COMPLETED BY THE CLOSING DATE 5th JANUARY 2022
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