A new study, titled “Livestock trade network: potential for disease transmission and implications for risk-based surveillance on the island of Mayotte”, has recently been published in Scientific Reports.
Prof. Dirk Pfeiffer (Chair Professor of One Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences) and Younjung Kim (Candidate for the Interdisciplinary CityU/Cornell PhD programme in Veterinary Medicine) were part of an international team of researchers including Dr Guillaume Fournié from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), Dr Raphaëlle Métras from the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and colleagues from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who conducted this study in the context of a research project funded by a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to Dr Métras.
Mayotte is a French island in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and the coast of Eastern Africa. Due to its close connection to the African mainland and neighbouring islands, the island is exposed to the introduction of a wide range of infectious diseases of both human and animal origin.
The research assessed potential implications of livestock movements in Mayotte for risk-based surveillance using social network analysis and mathematical modelling.
Dr Laure Dommergues, a regional veterinary officer at GDS Mayotte-Coopérative Agricole des Eleveurs Mahorais and one of the collaborating researchers on the paper, said: “As an outermost region of the European Union, Mayotte has the potential to serve as an entry point of diseases into Europe, such as Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) and Foot-and-Mouth disease (FMD). The findings of this study will contribute to the design of effective and efficient surveillance systems for infectious livestock diseases in Mayotte.”
The full article can be accessed here.