Epidemiology (EPI) Unit
Head of Unit: Benoit Durand
The Epidemiology (EPI) Unit conducts research and surveillance support activities in the field of animal health.
Surveillance activities
The unit runs the foot-and-mouth disease rapid-response unit, which conducts permanent monitoring (24/7) via a telephone hotline for the validation of clinical suspicions of foot-and-mouth disease. It participates in the epidemiology activities of the European Union Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-mouth disease. Lastly, the unit collaborates with the other units of the Laboratory for Animal Health in epidemiological investigations of emerging or re-emerging pathogens. This was the case, for example, with the detection of Brucella microti in farms raising marsh frogs (Pelophylax ridibundus), and the multiple investigations of anthrax clusters.
Expert appraisal activities
Several members of the unit are closely involved in expert appraisal structures within the Agency (working groups on tuberculosis in badgers or foxes, emergency collective expert appraisal group on highly pathogenic avian influenza [HPAI]) and outside (Epidemiological surveillance platform for animal health [ESA]), with participation in monitoring groups for bovine tuberculosis, bluetongue, West Nile fever and brucellosis.
Research activities
The research carried out by the unit provides a better understanding of the functioning of epidemiological systems. It also documents the risks of emergence, and assesses surveillance and control schemes for regulated animal diseases in order to suggest improvements. The diseases studied are mainly those caused by the pathogens on which the microbiologists of the laboratory’s other units work.
The unit's research themes focus on complex epidemiological systems, due to the multiplicity and complexity of the contact networks that enable pathogen transmission, the existence of multi-host systems within which a pathogen is transmitted, and/or the intervention of vectors (such as mosquitoes or ticks) in pathogen transmission. Its methods involve the analysis of high-quality and often large datasets, which may be backed up by mathematical models of transmission. In 2017, the unit received funding for a computing server from the Île-de-France Region (DIM1Health).
Lastly, there are often long-term collaborations with the epidemiology units of other ANSES laboratories, as well as with external epidemiology units, in particular the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and the Institut Pasteur (within the framework of the IBEID Laboratory of Excellence).
The themes studied by the EPI Unit include:
- application of modelling, decision support tools and biostatistics to different animal pathogen models (tuberculosis in deer, bluetongue, trichinellosis, etc.);
- health monitoring, risk assessment and analysis, as well as emergency intervention systems applied specifically to monitoring vesicular-aphthous diseases, especially foot-and-mouth disease.