Gastrointestinal Pathogens in the Environment. GIP-net

In the UK it is estimated that everyone will suffer from a stomach bug every five years. The disease can range from being merely an inconvenience, through to bloody diarrhoea, through to life threatening conditions in some cases, particularly in the already ill, the very young and the elderly. The costs to the economy in absence from work and medical care is considered to be over #750M per year in England alone.
These bugs grow and multiply in farmed and wild animals. They can be caught by a number of routes such as direct contact with animals and their faeces or from contaminated water or food. The bugs can be transmitted between people ? for example in nurseries or care homes, but the main source is animals which often do not show any signs of disease.
New bugs appear from time to time and changes in climate and agriculture may increase the threat of disease from existing bugs.
Traditionally governments in developed countries take the approach of dealing with one part of the agricultural system (eg water, waste, crops, food) but a more integrated approach is required. This should include all interested groups from farmers and farming organisations, to recreational users of the countryside, to regulatory and policy makers such as DEFRA, FSA, Local Councils, etc. Further we require information about the loads and types of bugs in the environment, how they get there, how well they survive and how they move around . Also, we need to find out what key information is missing and so needs to be collected. From a social perspective we need to find out who is responsible for these pathogens, who should pay for cleaning up the environment and what effects these clean-ups would have on the agricultural systems.
It is very important to develop new policies for dealing with these bugs but it is vital that this is acceptable to all. By bringing together the three groups of natural and social sciences, users of the environment , regulatory/policy makers in workshops it will be possible to plan a way forward and formulate a plan for a Phase II proposal through which the findings of the workshops can be implemented.

In the UK it is estimated that 20% of the population suffers from GI pathogen infections each year. The reservoirs of these pathogens are largely asymptomatic farm and wild animals which excrete these pathogens into the environment and cause disease by a number of pathways: direct contact with animals and their faeces, waterborne and contaminated food. The burden of zoonotic GI disease does not appear to be reducing and drivers such as climate change, agricultural change and re-emerging pathogens are likely to be important to human disease in the future. Currently the approach taken by developed nations is fragmented and narrowly focuses on policy/ regulatory controls and research in particular areas and on particular pathogens.
Here we propose an integrated approach which will encompass users of the environment, policy/ regulatory makers and the social and natural science research base. We will prepare three Strategic Review papers and develop specific themes in follow-on workshops that (1) Outline the agricultural/environmental systems; outline the impact of GIP on public health; identify the players and highlight data gaps; (2) Identify the main drivers of change in agriculture, environment and public health; outline draft conceptual framework for GIPs and identify the strengths and weaknesses of such a framework; (3) Formalise the conceptual framework.
At the end of the project we will have developed a generic framework on which we can tackle current and future GIP disease threats. This will form the basis of our Phase II application.