A Yale epidemiologist received a $1.3 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control to support a training program in illnesses such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus.
The program will focus on several vector-borne diseases, which are caused by a parasite or micro-organism and carried by an agent such as an insect, a bird or the wind.
The funding was awarded to Durland Fish, professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the School of Medicine, for the interdisciplinary program, which will include the medical school, the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
"The nation's capacity for surveillance and control of vector-borne diseases is at its lowest point in perhaps half a century," Fish says. "Recent major outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease, human ehrlichiosis (anaplasmosis) and West Nile viral encephalitis are a wake-up call to government public health agencies for strengthening their response capabilities to these and future health threats from emerging diseases and bio-terrorism."
The goal of the program is to provide skilled professionals to staff public health agencies, research institutions and private industry. The program will be specific for training in epidemiology, entomology, arborivology, ecology and microbiology of vector-borne pathogens with an emphasis on integrating field and laboratory disciplines.
Yale will award fellowships to students pursuing a Master in Public Health or Ph.D. degree. These students will be actively recruited from undergraduate and masters-degree programs in entomology, microbiology and ecology for both their scholarly abilities and specific interests in vector-borne diseases. Fish said the funding over five years will enable the support of 20 M.P.H. student internships and six full-time Ph.D. students.
"The critical shortage of professionally trained vector-borne disease specialists has hampered efforts to rebuild the public health infrastructure," Fish says. "Our response capacity has also suffered because of over-reliance upon human case surveillance, rather than active surveillance directed at potential human pathogens in vectors and reservoirs hosts in the field environment."
According to Fish, emphasis on molecular approaches for vector-borne disease control -- such as vaccines and transgenic vectors -- has diverted resources and talent from whole-organism biology and field studies. Although the molecular technologies may have specific applications in the future, Fish notes, they are not likely to be responsive to the country's immediate needs for increased surveillance and field intervention of vector-borne disease epidemics.
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