Mosquito-borne disease
This project investigates the distribution, habitat use, host feeding preferences, and vector competence of native Culex mosquitoes for West Nile and Usutu viruses under current and future UK climate conditions.
UKRI-Defra One Health programme
Community projects and outputs
The UKRI-Defra One Health approach to vector-borne diseases programme funded a portfolio of research projects to help the UK forecast, understand, and reduce vector-borne disease threats. VBD Hub was funded as a follow-on data hub to support discovery, sharing, and reuse of outputs from this community.
Each project page links to award records, Gateway to Research outputs, and related data indexed by VBD Hub as it becomes available.
Programme context
The programme was announced by UKRI and Defra in April 2023 with funding for eight research projects. The original opportunity also described a VBD data hub component to host and connect data and results generated through the programme.
Sources: UKRI funding opportunity and UKRI award announcement.
Projects
Tick-borne disease
RodTickPathMan
Researchers investigated how grey squirrels contribute to Lyme disease risk and how different grey squirrel management strategies may influence this relationship.
Genomics
GenES-VBD
GenES-VBD develops genomic epidemiology resources for surveillance of vector-borne disease systems, with emphasis on ticks, reservoir species, and pathogens.
Mosquito-borne disease
Mosquito Scotland
Mosquito Scotland set out to understand interactions between mosquito and bird populations in Scotland, and how environmental change may affect mosquito-borne disease risk.
Mosquito-borne disease
Vector-borne RADAR
Vector-borne RADAR enhances surveillance for mosquito-borne diseases of wild birds in the UK by combining bird sampling, mosquito trapping, laboratory screening, sequencing, and outbreak early-warning methods.
Mosquito-borne disease
This project studies the conditions that could permit onward transmission of zoonotic mosquito-borne viruses in the UK, integrating field studies, ornithological data, vector biology, and spatial transmission models.
Tick-borne disease
TickTools
TickTools has characterised the tick microbiome and interactome to support the UK response to tick-borne encephalitis virus, louping ill virus, and newly detected viral threats.
Tick-borne disease
OpTick
OpTick investigates how landscape change, farm management, climate, and host ecology affect tick-borne disease exposure for livestock and people on UK farms.