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Coronaviruses roadmap:
Control Strategies

Roadmap for the development of disease control strategies for coronaviruses

Download 202410 Draft Coronavirus Disease control research roadmap Final

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Prevalence and cost of disease

Prevalence and cost of disease

Research Question

  • Collecting data on coronavirus prevalence in animals and quantifying the cost of diseases (including social costs) to justify intervention

Research Gaps and Challenges

  • Extensive worldwide surveillance, particularly in wildlife and for the detection of new and emerging coronaviruses. Limitations to this include costs, sampling restrictions and the need to align surveillance strategies globally which requires resources and tools that are currently lacking
  • Assessing the short- and long-term cost of diseases, including a focus on determining the value in the contexts of wildlife or and/or biodiversity
  • Developing a method to address the different values of livestock in a range of contexts e.g. breeding versus production, backyard vs commercial. We have a partial understanding of pathogen survival in the environment and different species. This data feeds into our understanding of prevalence and the drivers of transmission

Solution Routes

  • Risk analysis for surveillance in hot-spots and at the human-animal interface
  • Standardization of livestock/pet/wildlife surveillance and improvements to accessibility of technologies required to conduct this
  • Standardization of methods to quantify short term and long-term burden of coronavirus infections, potentially with stratification into country-specific contexts

Dependencies

  • Creating a method to quantify value created from prevention of disease, and characterize the cost of disease accurately (social AND economic)
  • Investment into the effective surveillance infrastructure and standardisation across reporting