Mark Bronsvoort

Biography

I am a veterinary epidemiologist working at the Roslin Institute where I lead the Epidemiology, Economics and Risk Assessment (EERA) Group (www.eeragroup.org). We are a mix of veterinarians, statisticans, mathematical modellers, molecular epidemiologists, social scientists, geographers and geneticists working on a number of globally important infectious diseases of livestock and humans including rabies, foot-and-mouth disease, bovine tuberculosis, blue tongue and liver fluke. After working in general practice as a clinican I spent some time in the tropics where I became interested in ecology which lead me to a research position at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where I worked as a research assistant managing a drug screening programme for human river blindness in Cameroon. I subsequently studied the epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease in endemic settings in Africa on a Wellcome Trust Fellowship. In 2003 I move to the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer and worked on a number of large field based studies including the "Infectious Diseases of East Africa" (IDEAL) study and the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis in Cameroon. The group is focused on improving methods of surveillance, understanding and predicting transmission and disease spread, mapping diseases and antimicrobial resistance, evaluation of diagnostic tests and developing and support improved disease control strategies both in the United Kingdom and in the tropics particularly sub-Saharan Africa. 

Research Interest

The group currently works on a number of infectious disease projects in Africa, as well as the UK. One of the main areas of interest is the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) epidemiology in endemic countries, with on going work on diagnostic test evaluation, modelling surveillance, molecular epidemiology and phylogeography and evaluation of surveillance activities. We collaborate with Mission Rabies and World Veterinary Services providing technical epidemiological support for vaccination and neurtering programmes in Malawi and India. We are part of a Scottish Consortium providing expert advice and technical support to the Scottish Government on exotic disease outbreaks and I lead the surveillance topic within this pregramme. I also have been working on bovine tuberculosis epidemiology in Cameroon and the United Kingdom, looking particularly at diagnostic test performance, coinfections with liver fluke and using molecular epidemiological tools to understand transmission and spread. Finally I am also a programme coordinator for the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health (CTLGH) focusing on identifying and exploiting genetic variation in disease resistance and tolerance to improve disease control in Africa.