Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) epidemiologists led the design of an intensive training program to accelerate disease surveillance in Chad, which is facing multiple public health challenges: a surge in malaria and dengue, disease-related setbacks to conservation efforts to reintroduce critically endangered antelope species, and the risk of diseases emerging at the animal-human-ecosystem interface. Biosurveillance, such as monitoring diseases in wildlife and livestock, can provide earlier warnings for potential outbreaks and facilitate proactive management.
To inform the study design, the project team reviewed more than 200 publications spanning 20 years for infectious diseases and parasites that could pose a threat to biodiversity initiatives to reintroduce antelope. They found that 159 distinct pathogens or parasites had been reported. The findings highlighted potential regional health threats not only to these critically endangered animals but also to livestock and human communities.
Through the creation of a training hub at the Institut de Recherche en Élevage pour le Développement (IRED), Yale staff worked to bring human and animal health disciplines together, with Chadian partners, to support biodiversity by increasing local capacity for disease detection through serology, molecular, and genomic surveillance techniques.
In a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, which funded the collection of livestock samples at a high-risk human-livestock-wildlife interface, the Yale team, with YPS funding, was able to test the samples locally in Chad and train Chadian human and animal health professionals on new methodologies. The biosurveillance system was designed to have sustainable diagnostic capability over time, leading to longitudinal data that can be used for outbreak and transmission modeling, further helping to stem any future outbreaks.
“These sophisticated techniques and approaches for genomic surveillance in Chad will dramatically decrease the time it takes to obtain this kind of data, which ultimately is the goal of true, actionable surveillance,” said Amy Bei, associate professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) at YSPH and leader of the laboratory-capacity strengthening team. “I think it is also a boost for morale that the data was generated fully in Chad by Chadian scientists. The project is the fruit of many deep collaborations aimed at increasing and supporting local lab capacity. Overall, the future is bright for public health in Chad.”
Last updated September 2025.
