Page 82 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2018

One Health – viral zoonoses
The UP Centre for Viral Zoonoses (UP-CVZ)
The Centre for Viral Zoonoses is an interfaculty initiative
including the Faculties of Health Sciences, Natural and Agricultural Sciences, and Veterinary Science.
Interestingly, their study, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (2018), detected pathogens of public health interest such as Rift Valley Fever
Virus and the first case of laboratory- confirmed leptospirosis infection in Madagascar.
Professor Wanda Markotter, also from the CVZ and recipient of the SARChI Chair in Animal Infectious Diseases, used a metagenomics viral discovery approach to identify Middle East Respiratory syndrome related coronavirus in Neoromicia bats, which are insectivorous and often occur
In 2018, the UP-CVZ produced a volume of research in viral zoonotic diseases of global public health concern. Professor Marietjie Venter wrote an invited review in Current Opinion in Virology, assessing the zoonotic potential of arboviruses of African origin. Using a One Health approach, her group has described several neglected viruses that may cause epidemics in Africa with the potential to emerge elsewhere. To
complement this work, the group published a study in Acta Tropica
in 2018 where they identified four mosquito species belonging to the Aedes genus that took blood meals mainly from rock hyraxes in Kacheliba, West Pokot County, Kenya. Venter and co-workers also demonstrated that most febrile patients, in a public health facility in Madagascar, had viral infections (26,5%), followed by malaria (17%) and bacterial infections (1%).
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