The Problem:
The current global disease control strategy is focused almost entirely on responding to pandemics after they have emerged, leaving the global community vulnerable to rising human health threats. The emergence of Ebola and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome serve as poignant examples. Considering the speed at which these types of infectious diseases can spread across the globe, the development of systems to prevent pandemics and to detect emerging threats early on is vitally important. In today’s world of global trade and air travel, the exponential rate through which pathogens can spread from one human to thousands across continents in a single day is of crucial concern, increasing the necessity for proactive and globally integrated pandemic response systems.
The Work:
NAMRU-2 is a leader in the U.S. Department of Defense’s disease surveillance efforts. They are well-positioned to evaluate novel diagnostics products and therapeutic interventions, test disease control strategies, and to develop local expertise to detect and respond to emergent disease threats.
The Vysnova Impact:
As a contractor working with the U.S. Navy, Vysnova works to ensure full engagement of in-country collaborators and provides comprehensive program support to enhance biosurveillance and biosafety capacity building across study sites in Southeast Asia. The Vysnova team provides technical and managerial support to a plethora of cohort and surveillance studies across the Southeast Asia region in order to investigate and better understand vector-borne febrile and respiratory illnesses. Vysnova provides in-country staff to NAMRU-2 to assist in task completion tracking, develop and maintain data repositories, collaborates with local implementation partners and research institutes, and supplies direct administrative and IT support to NAMRU-2. From our Washington, D.C.-based project office, Vysnova provides higher-level program-wide support by tracking study progress, overseeing contract compliance, and liaising with Principal Investigators to facilitate discussions on strategic directions of the research. Our collaborative and solution-based approach allows NAMRU-2 investigators to focus on the critical science at hand, developing strategies for combating future infectious disease threats to human health.
