CO-INFECTION

Casuses and consequences of multiple infections in animal and human health

Research Pathway: Wildlife Ecology and Management

RYC-2016-21120 «Ramón y Cajal Agreement», Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MINECO, Gobierno de España. Period: 2018-2022.

In this work, we showed the impact of specific pathogen combinations on diarrhea severity in children under five (Zhang et al. Infect Dis Poverty. 2016; 5: 64.). In most cases, is the interaction of different microorganisms but not the effect of a single pathogen the cause of diseases.

Thanks to the collaboration of an international network of infectious diseases doctors, veterinarians and disease ecologists, we are working to understand the consequences of multiple infections at individual and population scales. In particular we are focused on TB and gastroenteritis progression. Improving statistical methods to deal with co-infection data is in our research agenda.

Our objectives are…

“To understand the role of pathogen communities on the outcome of common infectious diseases and to assess the pros and cons of different statistical approaches to analyze data from multiple infections are our main research goals”

We conduct both observational studies and computational and laboratory experiments to evaluate the impact of co-infections on pathogen transmission and disease severity.

Who we are

Researchers from the UAB, Murcia University and the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Spain, Cardiff University, UK, Teagasc-Agriculture and Food Development Authority of Ireland, and the Oregon State University, USA.