MIRRI's SRIA | Strategic Area 1: Research on pathogenic microorganisms and human / human-animal infectious diseases

Infectious diseases and the growing concern for human and animal health

With globalisation, Europe and the world are exposed to various infectious diseases which threaten the public health. This global issue is a huge concern for health and economic development.?The current Covid-19 pandemic underlines what is at stake. Zoonotic infections are likely to increase as people contact with carrier species with diseases that humans have not previously encountered. These infections spread by international travel. The EU needs to be prepared for these likelihoods. Implementation of prevention and mitigation measures is required to avert global health and economic crises.

Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 420,000 people die every year after eating contaminated food, resulting in the loss of 33 million healthy life years (DALYs). What is more, despite increased access to improved water supplies, water-related infectious diseases continue to pose a threat to public health in the pan-European region and worldwide.?Pathogens that induce?infectious diseases in livestock represent an additional economic and health threat?and a challenge for food safety and security. Animal pathogens are of major concern to agriculture as well as to global?health, since it is estimated that approximately?60%?of human infections are?associated to zoonoses.?

Besides the global emerging infectious diseases, there are the Neglected Infectious Diseases (NIDs).?According to the European Commission, the NIDs affect around 1 billion people in the world’s poorest countries. Therefore, urgent actions must be taken to develop effective and relevant prevention, early diagnosis and treatments to fight such diseases. Combating infectious diseases necessitates the preparedness in research facilities, technologies, services, and resources.?

The urge in combating outbreaks stimulated the European Commission to launch several actions related to infectious diseases. The actions addressed the readiness to face outbreaks, development of diagnosis, treatments and vaccines and support of clinical trials through the European and Developing countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) which was launched for a second time for the period 2014-2024 to cover the NIDs with a budget of €1.3 billion. Moreover, Europe is addressing the infectious diseases through research infrastructures and resources to enhance the research such as ECRAID (European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases) and?ERINHA?(European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents).

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MIRRI commitment in the fight against infectious diseases

The resources available from MIRRI form a rich asset capable of supporting research and innovation on infectious diseases. MIRRI?conserves and distributes well-characterised strains of pathogenic agents,?and encompasses research facilities, high-quality services, and expertise to contribute to deliver new treatments, prevention and research findings on human and animal infectious diseases, in the frame of respecting scientific and regulatory policies. MIRRI offers?expertise and technologies to build workflows to characterise pathogens in terms of their precise taxonomic position, virulence and antimicrobial resistance, allowing to model their evolution and predict their virulence potential, their biological activities and their capacity for resistance to antimicrobial agents.?The vision of MIRRI is to secure the basic necessities to respond to infectious diseases through the deep knowledge on the biology of pathogens that needs to be achieved by applying new technologies. MIRRI thereby supports research on?interactions between infecting pathogens and the immune system, on?the role of healthy microbiota in preventing pathogens development and?pathogenesis routes. MIRRI can also support research on pathogens evolution including the development of resistance to the host’s defense mechanisms or to antimicrobial agents. This provides the scope to promote the development of new therapeutic measures and medications.

MIRRI helps facing existing and emerging diseases by providing resources to quickly develop infectious disease diagnostics (e.g. by providing the needed control strains for emerging pathogens diagnostic tests set-up, as was the case for SARS-CoV-2),?setting new strategies for pathogens monitoring and developing treatments and vaccines.

This is one of a series of seven articles being published by MIRRI on the occasion of the EU Missions Info Days, taking place on 17-18 May 2022. The text has been originally published in MIRRI's Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda 2021-2030 - Microbial Resources for a Green, Healthy and Sustainable Future (released in March 2021) - available to download at https://www.mirri.org/about/repository/communication-materials/