Viruses in farmed salmon harm the UK's economy, decrease industry sustainability, and reduce fish welfare. Piscine myocarditis virus (PMCV) and infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV) are particularly damaging. This project aims to improve understanding of how these viruses spread between farms, and hence inform actions that can improve disease control and reduce disease incidence.

This collaboration monitors outbreaks of both low and novel high-pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI and HPAI) in wild birds in Europe and Central Asia.

In the past 20 years, HPAI viruses have increasingly been detected in Europe raising questions about the mechanism of the novel emergence of these HPAI H5 viruses, source, and route of introduction into Europe.

With integrated streams of social, economic, biological, mathematical and policy-led research, we are co-producing detailed knowledge on the biological, structural and socio-economic factors that shape networks of chicken production and distribution. The RVC-led UKRI GCRF One Health Poultry Hub brings together leading laboratory, clinical, veterinary and social scientists, as well as skilled communications experts, programme support staff and external stakeholders.  

The PANDORA programme is about understanding the socio-ecological drivers of emerging zoonosis and persistence of transboundary pathogens at human/environment/wildlife/domestic animal interfaces in contrasted landscapes as a means to trial novel veterinary, medical and preventive solutions. PANDORA is the core programme and other projects have arisen from this platform, including a Queen Mary’s led UKRI GCRF COVID Lockdown Project and an IDRC funded West-African One-Health Action for Mitigating Outbreaks project.

This project is studying the economic and social factors that influence how foot-and-mouth disease is controlled in Kenya at local and national levels. Understanding the socioeconomic drivers that affect disease control within relevant livestock systems, and the cost-effectiveness of control options are important components of designing FMD control programmes.

The aim of AMFORA is to use a ‘systems-thinking’ approach to map aquaculture systems and identify hotspots for the emergence and selection of resistance and human exposure to antimicrobials and antimicrobial-resistant organisms.

This will enable the identification of potential drivers of AMU and interventions to reduce AMU.

Hybridisation amongst parasitic agents, particularly concerning those with zoonotic potential, is a major emerging public and veterinary health concern at the interface of evolution, epidemiology, ecology, and control. Working within a One Health framework, the overarching aim of our ZELS projects is to elucidate the complex dynamics of zoonotic hybrid schistosomiasis transmission, with the ultimate goals of improving the health of affected people and their livestock.

A generic framework for the evaluation of animal health surveillance. SERVAL is based on a conceptual model that can be applied to any surveillance system. A set of 22 system attributes are defined and guidelines to their qualitative and/or quantitative assessment are provided.

Animal health surveillance programmes are necessary to obtain quality evidence to inform the management of threats to animal and public health. This investment yields benefits for animal owners and for industries including food and leisure that depend upon a healthy animal population.

The saiga project is a long-term contribution from RVC to research into understanding of the causes of mortality of the saiga antelope. This species ranges in the Steppes of Asia, in a few localities but is classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature red listing process. The study findings to date provided unique information on the cause of mass mortality of saiga and the impact of PPR on saiga antelope.

We study the epidemiology of tuberculosis in cattle using a combination of fieldwork and the analysis of big data. Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is caused by infection with Mycobacterium bovis. It is the most pressing animal health problem in Great Britain. Around 40,000 cattle test bTB-positive each year and are slaughtered in an effort to control this disease. This comes at a cost to the taxpayer of around £100 million per year in surveillance testing and compensation.

We study the epidemiology of tuberculosis in wild badgers using a combination of fieldwork, laboratory investigations and long-term data analysis.

Tuberculosis (TB) occurs worldwide and affects many animals (farmed and wild) as well as humans. In cattle, TB is caused by infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis and is sometimes referred to as bovine TB.

A study of the contact patterns between a wide range of species to better understand the risks of disease transmission between livestock, wildlife and people. Many diseases spread between species. Humans are no exception: we share most of our infectious diseases with other hosts. This means we may become infected from other species (for example, catching rabies through being bitten by an infected dog) or we may be the source of infection to other species (for example, spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria to livestock or pets).

Research project by the Royal Veterinary College investigating the epidemiology of Tuberculosis in meerkats in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa.

Meerkats (Suricata suricatta) are social mammals that live in groups. A potential disadvantage of being social is that infectious diseases are more likely to spread. Tuberculosis (TB: a bacterial infection) was first detected in wild meerkats in southern Africa in the late 1990s.