Dr. Ben Anderson
Dr. Benjamin Anderson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health, which is also where he received his MPH and PhD in Public Health (One Health). His research experience and expertise include emerging infectious diseases, zoonotic diseases, and viral respiratory pathogens with a strong focus on zoonotic viruses. He has considerable laboratory experience at BSL-1 to BSL-3+ environments using serological and molecular diagnostic techniques, and he has worked extensively in multiple countries on epidemiology studies looking at infectious disease transmission and persistence among humans, animals, and...
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World Rainforest Day - Vittor Lab Efforts to Research Deforestation |
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Wednesday, June 22, marks World Rainforest Day. The goal is to protect and restore rainforests since they serve one of the greatest climate change mitigation tools available to us. Over the years, Dr. Amy Vittor has researched how deforestation impacts people and the environment. Some of her work includes reviewing how rainforest deforestation impacts emerging parasitic disease, linking the breeding habitats of the major malaria vector to deforestation and analyzing how tropical deforestation influences the mosquito fauna to favor disease vectors. More recently, Vittor has researched the implications...
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Dr. Jeong Studies the Transmission of Antibiotic Resistance at the Wildlife-Livestock Interface |
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Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms are widespread in natural environments, animals (wildlife and livestock), and humans, which has reduced our capacity to control life threatening infectious disease. Yet, little is known about their transmission pathways, especially at the wildlife-livestock interface. Dr. K.C. Jeong investigated the potential transmission pathways of antibiotic resistance between livestock and wildlife by comparing gut microbiota and antibiotic resistance genes of feral swine, coyotes, cattle, and environmental microbiota. Unexpectedly, analysis of microbiome from feral swine, coyotes, cattle and the surrounding environment reveals that wild animals harbor more abundant antibiotic-resistant organisms than livestock and might act as a source of antibiotic...
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Universal Healthcare as Pandemic Preparedness: The Lives and Costs that Could Have Been Saved During the COVID - 19 Pandemic |
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EPI member Dr. Burt Singer collaborated with researchers from Yale School of Public Health, University of San Francisco, University of Massachusetts and University of Maryland, Baltimore to study the effects universal healthcare could have had on pandemic preparedness. The fragmented and inefficient healthcare system in the United States has led to many preventable deaths and unnecessary costs every year. This is exacerbated by the COVID - 19 pandemic. In an analysis incorporating the demography of the uninsured with age-specific COVID - 19 and non pandemic mortality, we estimated that a single -payer universal healthcare system would have saved 212,000 lives in 2020 alone. We also calculated that US$ 105.6 billion of medical expenses associated with COVID - 19 hospitalization could have been averted by a universal healthcare system.
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Exploring the Utility of Social-ecological and Entomological Risk Factors for Dengue Infection as Surveillance Indicators in the Dengue Hyper-endemic City of Machala, Ecuador |
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Dr. Catherine Lippi published the final chapter of her dissertation work in 2021, under the advisement of QDEC Lab Group PI Dr. Sadie Ryan. Conducted in collaboration with SUNY Upstate Medical University, the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health, and Universidad Técnica de Machala, this study focused on identifying surveillance indicators associated with dengue fever risk in Machala, Ecuador, where the annual number of dengue cases caused by the mosquito Aedes aegypti is historically high. Mosquito surveillance and human dengue infection data were brought together with household surveys on social and... READ MORE
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Emergence of Highly Virulent Vibrio vulnificus Strains in Sea/Estuarine-based Tilapia Aquaculture in Bangladesh
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Vibrio vulnificus is a gram-negative halophilic (salt-loving) human pathogen and ubiquitous to ocean and estuarine reservoirs. The counts of V. vulnificus is greatly increased in ocean/estuaries due to increased temperature and rainfalls. Usually, a small fraction of environmental V. vulnificus strains causes deadly (>50% death) infection in humans particularly in immunocompromised patients and humans acquire the pathogen after consumption of raw and/or undercooked shellfish and fish, including oysters. Using sophisticated techniques, including microbiology and molecular biology, Dr. Afsar Ali and his collaborators from Bangladesh...
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Why Viral Variants in the Vaccinated Matter
Think back to January 2021, when COVID vaccines offered a fresh hope after the pandemic’s first year. Effective and safe vaccines offered a key tool to tame the pandemic. But not long after the public began to recover from their initial vaccination hangovers, questions emerged about breakthrough infections. Soon, researchers across the nation began to suspect that vaccinated individuals could become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, sooner...
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In Thailand, Dengue is No Longer Mostly a Childhood Disease
Over the last 40 years, the average age of someone infected with dengue in Thailand climbed from about 8 years old to early adulthood, or 24 years old. The question is, Why? Researchers have theorized that better detection methods, or interventions that reduce the likelihood of humans being bit by mosquitoes – such as using window screens, or spraying mosquitos with insecticide – may have played a role.
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What Happens When We Pass Human Diseases to Animals?
The COVID-19 pandemic has snapped into focus the deep risks that can unfold when an animal pathogen jumps into people. But what about the reverse? What are the potential pathways and risks of human pathogens “spilling back” and making the jump to wildlife? A team of researchers recently published a literature review in Ecology Letters that assesses cases of human-to-wildlife transmission events and characterizes spillback factors.
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