This month at STOP Spillover


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August 2021

This Month at STOP Spillover

In this issue, a message from Project Director Deborah Kochevar, introducing Uganda Country Team Lead Doreen Birungi, and much more.

From Our Experts

On the Blog

Introducing STOP Spillover

STOP Spillover Project Director Deborah Kochevar discusses the what, where, why, and how of the project. "Through projects like STOP Spillover, we can strengthen country-level One Health capacity to address the drivers of spillover and advance global health security."

On the Blog

Meet Doreen Birungi, STOP Spillover's Uganda Country Team Lead

Doreen Birungi discusses her vision for preventing the next pandemic in an in-depth interview. "Viruses do not care about country borders, so it's up to all of us to work together to prevent the next pandemic."

STOP Spillover in the News

Dyan Mazurana Talks Gender and Spillover with Tufts Now

STOP Spillover’s Dyan Mazurana discusses how crisis response must take gender into account. As part of STOP Spillover, “we are trying to understand how the risks of zoonotic spillover differ among genders.”

STOP Spillover in the News

World Politics Review Interviews Deborah Kochevar

Project Director Deborah Kochevar spoke with World Politics Review’s Trend Lines podcast about how STOP Spillover aims to anticipate and address the threats posed by zoonotic pathogens.

"There is really no dividing line between the health of people, animals, and the environment."

Listen to the podcast

New Research

New Study on Ebola and Pigs

In a new study published in BMC Infectious Diseases, STOP Spillover’s Doreen Birungi and Charles Kato assess the knowledge of and perceptions about the occurrence of Ebola and its effects on the pig value chain in the agro-pastoral district of Luweero, Central Uganda.

Read the study

Learn about STOP Spillover’s Participatory Approach

We believe that engaging local communities and stakeholders leads to increased knowledge and practical and innovative solutions to address spillover risk – and this participatory approach guides all of our work.

STOP Spillover Brief

Outcome Mapping

Outcome Mapping (OM) is a structured participatory tool that uses a bottom-up collaborative process to engage all Spillover Ecosystem stakeholders, and focuses on how people and stakeholders relate to one another and their environment.

This process allows stakeholders to drive the change and own the process, which builds towards self-reliance, sustainability, and inclusive development.

STOP Spillover Brief

OH-DReaM Working Groups

One Health-Design Research and Mentorship (OH-DReaM) Working Groups are technical groups formed at the country level. They consist of STOP Spillover country team members, local stakeholders, and STOP Spillover Resource Hub members who have technical expertise in specific issue areas – working together to address a specific thematic area, help close an information or data gap, or develop and test an intervention to reduce the risk of spillover.

This process allows stakeholders to drive the change and own the process, which builds towards self-reliance, sustainability, and inclusive development.

Watch & Share

STOP Spillover Meets One Health Platforms

STOP Spillover is pursuing a One Health approach, recognizing that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment - and over the last month national One Health platforms hosted STOP Spillover’s country teams to discuss how they can work together. These important platforms provide a critical way for a country’s cross-disciplinary experts to coordinate responses to spillover events and potential outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics.

In Bangladesh

Nearly 90 people attended the webinar introducing STOP Spillover on July 10th hosted by One Health Bangladesh in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Department of Livestock Services, Bangladesh Forest Department, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, One Health Institute, Chattogram Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, EcoHealth Alliance, and Global Health Development. STOP Spillover wants to thank Professor Nitish Debnath and Dr. Salim Uzzaman for providing technical support for the webinar. You can learn more about One Health Bangladesh here.

In Uganda

More than 50 members of the National One Health Platform attended a June 17th virtual meeting with STOP Spillover – with great thanks to Hajji Musa Ssekamatte, coordinator of the National One Health Platform, for organizing the event. Learn more about Uganda’s National One Health Platform by emailing them here.

Tech Byte

In this section of the newsletter, we’ll share innovations in surveillance, data, diagnostics, and technologies that can be used to identify and reduce spillover risk, amplification and spread.

Using Technology and Innovation to Monitor Disease Risks

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in collaboration with other U.S. government agencies, initiated a National Wastewater Surveillance System in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wastewater surveillance has been widely used in the U.S. and Senegal, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, and Rwanda by STOP Spillover partner, Tetra Tech, and in U.S. universities including at MIT. Tetra Tech has even created portable wastewater surveillance kits for use in local schools.

Although COVID-19 is largely transmitted by respiratory droplets and not fecal-oral routes, viral RNA can be detected in feces for up to several weeks post-infection. This makes wastewater surveillance a useful tool to complement traditional surveillance methods. In collaboration with local stakeholders and national governments, the STOP Spillover team plans on piloting wastewater surveillance approaches, tools, and technologies to reduce the risks related to the amplification and spread of zoonotic diseases in target countries.

STOP Spillover is a global consortium funded by USAID and led by Tufts University that is working to understand and address the risks posed by known zoonotic viruses with the potential to spill over from animals and cause outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics in humans. Learn about our partners.

STOP Spillover at Tufts University

419 Boston Avenue, Medford
MA 02155 United States

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