MOOD: A Project to Improve the Detection of Emerging Diseases
Coordinated from Montpellier by Renaud Lancelot, a researcher at CIRAD, the MOOD project has, since last January, brought together 12 countries and 25 partners, including the University of Montpellier. Its goal is to unify and improve global health surveillance to better combat emerging diseases.
The project was supposed to be officially announced in Stockholm any day now… if it hadn’t ultimately been overshadowed by such breaking news. As COVID-19 spreads to every corner of the globe, the importance of a unified and effective global health surveillance system has never seemed more urgent. And that is precisely the mission the MOOD project has set for itself by working to improve epidemiological intelligence tools and services.
12 countries and 25 partners
Conducted as part of the European H2020 program by European and North American researchers, this project is coordinated by CIRAD, an expert in emerging diseases, most of which are of animal origin. It brings together 12 countries and 25 partners, includingthe ECDC (European Center for Disease Control),the WHO (World Health Organization), the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), and the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health).
The emergence of COVID-19 has, of course, significantly intensified communication among the members of this consortium and refocused the project on this priority issue. The researchers have thus been working on modeling the virus, asInserm researcher Vittoria Colizza explained on the France Inter program “Le Virus au Carré”on Tuesday, March 24.
As Renaud Lancelot, Mood coordinator and researcher at CIRAD, points out:
“With the onset of COVID-19, we’re working twice as hard while staying on track with the original plan.”
An initial program aimed at better detecting certain threats, such as the risk of a new pathogen being introduced into Europe, the risk of its spread, and areas conducive to its spread.
Case Studies in 5 Countries
With a budget of 14 million euros over four years, the researchers have developed a multi-stage plan. The first stage, already underway, involves conducting a case study in five countries characterized by different socioeconomic, geographic, and climatic conditions. France, Italy, Spain, Finland, and Serbia were thus selected. The objectivesare to analyze existing surveillance methods and epidemiological intelligence systems and to assess new needs with the help of epidemiological intelligence professionals working in each country.
Currently, public health officials use two types of sources: “official” sources provided by health agencies and “unofficial” sources such as online forums, online news articles, and social media. While the latter have proven highly effective in detecting the emergence of new diseases, they also have their limitations, notably the immense volume of data to be processed. How can we select relevant information from this vast amount of data? How can we prioritize and interpret it to turn it into insights that can aid in the detection of new pathogens? Our European experts will be tackling all of these questions.
Tools distributed in Europe and the Global South
The tools and services designed by MOOD researchers will then be developed and made available tothe ECDC and the project’s partner public health agencies, and subsequently disseminated throughout Europe and beyond—particularly in countries of the Global South—before being shared at a reasonable cost and, if possible, as open source.
This scientific approach is essential at a time when—as current events starkly demonstrate—population growth, deforestation, and climate change, along with the resulting shifts in animal and human mobility, are significantly increasing the risk of new diseases emerging and accelerating their spread worldwide.