On 24 Oct, Liz Batty, Senior Bioinformatician and co-Head of the Molecular Microbiology group in MORU Microbiology, was awarded U$200,000 by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to use metagenomic sequencing to define the causes of febrile illness in remote and rural areas of South and Southeast Asia.
Liz’s grant will analyse samples from South and Southeast Asia Community-based Trials Network (SEACTN) work package B (WP-B) sites, in Laos, Thailand and Bangladesh via collaborations with LOMWRU, SMRU, and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC]. Led by Prof Yoel Lubell, and supported by the Wellcome Innovations Flagship Programme, SEACTN seeks to ascertain the incidence, causes and outcome of febrile illness in SE Asia.
By enabling scientists to analyse all nucleic acids in a sample, metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) can be used to detect novel pathogens in outbreaks and investigate diseases with complex etiology, such as encephalitis and antimicrobial resistance.
“This metagenomic work will help us define the burden of febrile illness by identifying pathogens causing febrile illness that are novel, or missed by traditional diagnostics,” said Liz. “It will improve our understanding of the causes of febrile illness and how we choose target diagnostics for febrile illness.”
Accurately determining which infection is causing fever could have a significant impact on health in South and Southeast Asia, where febrile illness contributes substantially to morbidity and mortality.
With the decline of malarial illness and mortality in this region, the burden has shifted to non-malarial causes of fever. However, the causes of non-malarial fever remain unknown in many patients – and febrile patients are incorrectly treated as if they had malaria.
Liz’s grant was part of U$2 million awarded by CZI and BMGF to researchers investigating novel, emerging pathogens with a focus on building metagenomics capacity in high-potential countries that have been historically under-resourced in SE Asia and elsewhere.
– Text contributions by Liz Batty and John Bleho.