Location: Foreign Arthropod Borne Animal Disease Research
Project Number: 3022-32000-025-030-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 15, 2025
End Date: Aug 14, 2028
Objective:
The objective of this agreement is to apply new Agricultural Research Services technology as well as existing methodology to detect and characterize arboviruses present in the southern United States, an important gateway for virus emergence. This surveillance is critical for detecting and identifying emerging animal disease threats to livestock and developing a baseline of virus population variability. The area to be investigated will include areas across all Texas counties with special focus on South Texas, including areas along the gulf coast and the border with Mexico.
Approach:
Wildlife and livestock species will be sampled from various locations throughout Texas. Sampling efforts will target areas representative of the wildlife-livestock interface, the boundary between urban and rural areas, or the migratory bird/wildlife interface. This will assess geographical variation and the impact of livestock encroachment into wild areas. Also sampling these habitats repeatedly over time will allow for modeling of how virus circulation (host-vector-virus) interactions will change over time. Sera, blood samples, and other biological samples collected from wildlife and livestock will then be assayed by different techniques to detect pathogen presence or exposure. Pending personnel and resource availability, environmental and/or arthropod vector sampling may also be conducted to gather additional knowledge related to pathogen transmission. The current pathogens of interest include but are not limited to: flavivurses/orthoflaviviruses (West Nile virus, dengue virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, etc.), orthobunyaviruses (Cache Valley virus, Jamestown Canyon encephalitis virus, etc.), vesicular stomatitis virus, and Rio Grande virus.