Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

In a guest blog, Professor Stephen Baker explains the importance of monitoring the emergence of infectious diseases in Asia. Zoonotic diseases that pass from animal to human are an international public health problem regardless of location, but in lower-income countries the opportunities for such pathogens to enter the food chain are amplified.

Mosquitoes in the sky

In a guest blog, Professor Stephen Baker explains the importance of monitoring the emergence of infectious diseases in Asia. Zoonotic diseases that pass from animal to human are an international public health problem regardless of location, but in lower-income countries the opportunities for such pathogens to enter the food chain are amplified.

Where I currently work in Vietnam, and across the region, humans have a very different way of interacting with animals being bred for food than would be familiar to those in the UK. If one were to travel to the Mekong Delta region (in the south of Vietnam) it would not be uncommon to see people who keep a large variety of farm animals in, or in close proximity to, their houses. It comes as little surprise that in a country where raw pig blood and pig uterus are commonly consumed, the number one cause of bacterial meningitis is Streptococcus suis, a colonising bacterium of pigs.

The major problem of researching emerging infections is predicting how they arise and how we respond to them once they do.

The full story is available on the University of Oxford website

Similar stories

Improving access to care for people in Vietnam impacted by Hepatitis C: dissemination workshop to share findings of OUCRU’s community-based participatory research

OUCRU and HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases host a one-day research dissemination workshop for policy, healthcare, community, and research stakeholders. The workshop is the culmination of an OUCRU project: “Community-based participatory research to promote engagement with underserved communities at risk of Hepatitis C virus in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam”.

The journey of dreams, improving engagement with underserved populations at risk for Hepatitis C in Vietnam.

OUCRU Public Engagement team produced a video based on their project “Community-based participatory research to promote engagement with underserved communities at risk of Hepatitis C virus in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam”. This video was made by community members of the community-based participatory research to the project. The video is in Vietnamese with English subtitles

Watch our webinar - Radical cure of vivax malaria: can we do better?

The three presentations and expert discussion by Dr Rob Commons, Dr Alison Roth and Dr James Watson, chaired by Professor Sir Nicholas White (Mahidol Oxford Research Unit) and Dr Chau Nguyen Hoang (Oxford University Clinical Research Unit), are now available.

Multidisciplinary dengue forecasting project launches in Vietnam

DART (Dengue Advanced Readiness Tools), is a new project supported by Wellcome to use climate data to better predict and prepare for infectious diseases outbreaks.

OUCRU’s Photographer In Residence Featured In The Lancet’s Highlights 2022

Photographs have the power to inform and engage viewers. Earlier this year, The Lancet invited submissions for Highlights, the publication’s annual photography competition. Highlights 2022 featured 14 winning photographs telling stories from a wide variety of health-related topics that captured the world’s attention in 2022. One of the powerful images selected was from Pearl Gan, OUCRU’s Photographer in Residence.

Researchers call for antimicrobial resistance surveillance to be improved

The number of studies reporting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) data has increased in Africa, South and South East Asia according to new research in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.