Defra-UKRI One Health VBD Hub

Vector-borne diseases, in which infection is spread by insects, ticks, and mites, affect the health of humans, animals, and plants. They include familiar diseases like Lyme disease, Bluetongue, and Louping Ill, and new infections like Usutu virus. Over the next 20 years, risk of these types of infections is predicted to increase in the UK. It is critical that we establish the key networks and platforms needed to coordinate the UK's response to these looming threats. Formulating plans to prevent and control vector-borne diseases is complicated by the fact that their transmission cycles often involve not only vectors but also several domestic and wildlife animal species and are extremely dependent on environmental conditions. This project will establish a Defra-UKRI One Health VBD Hub which will improve the accessibility and sharing of information about the infectious agents, hosts, and vectors involved in vector-borne disease transmission in the UK. The project includes building improved infrastructure that allows researchers working across different vector and pathogen species and ecological, veterinary, and medical contexts to combine their knowledge to deliver more coordinated responses to vector-borne disease threats. We will provide tools to help understand the relationship between our environment and vector-borne disease transmission and predict how changes in the environment will impact risk going forward. The project will support the sharing of data and findings on these diseases among the UK research community and with policy makers. In the end, the project will deliver a platform and network for dealing with UK vector-disease threats.

Responses to vector-borne diseases (VBDs) require a One Health approach that integrates data on pathogens, animals, and humans with environmental data. This is particularly true for the UK which in the next 20 years is predicted to experience an increased threat from both endemic and invasive VBDs driven by changes in climate, land use, and biodiversity. UKRI and Defra recently invested over £7M in projects designed to improve our baseline understanding of mosquito and tick-borne diseases in the UK. This proposal is the product of a consultation with the larger UK VBD community about the resources required to enhance the links between data collection, analysis, and policy making. The Defra-UKRI One Health VBD Hub will provide infrastructure to enhance access and sharing of data on pathogens, vectors, and hosts, tools for linking these data to environmental data for forecasting applications, and visualisations and summaries to inform policy. Alongside these tools the project will deliver virtual and in person training and networking opportunities for the UK-VBD community. This project builds on existing UKRI as well as international investments in VBD repositories to deliver and maintain critical capacity and networks for the UK to respond to VBD threats. The Hub will form the basis for UK research community to develop future surveillance, advanced analytics, modelling, and simulation to support evidence-based decision making.