A multinational consortium led by FHI 360 and including the University of Utah as a specialist technical assistance provider has been awarded a $246M federal contract by USAID to improve infectious disease detection and surveillance across the globe. The U’s expertise in genomics, bioinformatics and diagnostics will help move this important work forward to support countries to better prevent, detect, and respond in a timely way to infectious disease outbreaks.
The STRIDES (STRengthening Infectious disease DEtection Systems) Activity will operate in up to 50 countries to prevent and reduce the severity of serious disease threats worldwide, including epidemics and pandemics. The FHI 360-led consortium includes 15 organizations, of which the U is the only academic partner in the U.S.
“The STRIDES Activity provides the University of Utah the opportunity to help transform the way countries can effectively respond to emerging epidemiological threats,” says Juan Carlos Negrette, the director of the Office of Global Health at the U, which is coordinating the U’s participation in the consortium. “Our role will have a real impact on people’s lives all over the world.”
STRIDES will work at national and subnational levels in partner countries to improve disease detection, optimize data collection and analysis to inform prevention actions, and help provide focused disease surveillance before, during, and after outbreaks. These advancements are critical to help prevent known and emerging infectious disease threats from spreading widely and rapidly.
As a member of the FHI360 STRIDES consortium, we look forward to expanding the impact of the fantastic work done here at the U to improve the lives of people in diverse parts of the globe.
Funding will support faculty and staff from family and preventive medicine, biomedical informatics, human genetics, pathology, and at ARUP to support country-specific needs to advance disease detection, surveillance, and prevention. The U’s expertise will be engaged by FHI 360 based on specific scopes of work in the partner countries the Activity supports; activities may include:
- Strengthening laboratory testing capacity for accurate disease diagnosis and detection.
Improving the detection and characterization of new pathogens as they emerge, evolve, and spread over time. Advanced genome analysis tools will power these efforts, which are essential to understanding and preventing disease spread.
Enhancing detection of infectious diseases at the community level, before outbreaks spread, by developing and implementing wastewater monitoring systems for pathogens.
Improving the interpretation of disease trends and timely response by creating dashboard- and bulletin-type tools that can quickly integrate disease data in understandable ways.
Ramkiran Gouripeddi, MBBS, assistant professor of biomedical informatics, adds that the collaboration is an important avenue for the U’s specialties to make a difference to health worldwide. “STRIDES provides an opportunity for the University of Utah to apply our technical expertise from various domains—including public health, pathology, genomics, and informatics, among others—in an interconnected manner,” Gouripeddi says. “This allows us to address various global challenges at scale, holistically, in a One Health paradigm.”
“We are excited to bring the cutting-edge approaches that are developed and practiced at the University of Utah to the project,” says Scott Benson, MD, PhD, associate professor of public health and the project lead at the U. “The knowledge, experience and skills our team brings to the table demonstrate what the university does best. We develop innovative solutions to complex problems, the apply those solutions to health systems for the benefit of communities around the world.”
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Other University of Utah Health researchers involved in this project include:
Edgar Hernandez, PhD, research assistant professor of biomedical informatics
Kathy Sward, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics and nursing
Joselin Hernandez Ruiz, PhD, research associate in human genetics
Windy Tanner, PhD, associate professor of family and preventive medicine
Ben Bradley, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and medical director for High Consequence Pathogen Response at ARUP
Mark Fisher, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and medical director of the Bacteriology, Antimicrobials, Parasitology, and Infectious Disease Rapid Testing laboratories at ARUP