Country Technical Officer

STOPS Project description:

The USAID STOP Spillover project provides a critical opportunity to enhance global understanding of the complex drivers of viral spillover and to augment sustainable national capacities in surveillance, risk analysis, and behavior change. The project currently supporting seven z prioritized countries across Africa and Asia to gain critical knowledge about their Spillover Ecosystems, to refine and use that knowledge effectively, efficiently, and sustainably to reduce the risk of zoonotic viral spillover and spread. This is a five-year project from October 2020 to September 2025.

STOP Spillover is a USAID-funded project to anticipate and address threats posed by the emerging zoonotic diseases that pose the greatest risk of jumping from animals to humans. Tufts University, together with an international consortium of nine core partners that include Southeast Asia One Health University network (SEAOHUN), icddr,b-Bangladesh and Africa One Health University network (AFROHUN) and partners are working collaboratively utilizing diverse capabilities among consortium members and stakeholders to implement the STOP project in five countries in Africa and up to five countries in Asia over the next four years.

The consortium will work with USAID to develop and institutionalize innovative, country-specific, and sustainable approaches so they are well-prepared to stop viral spillover from animals to humans and reduce amplification and spread of the virus among humans. STOP Spillover will focus on strengthening national capacity in a number of targeted countries to 1) understand the factors that contribute to the risk of spillover of pathogens from wildlife to humans; 2) develop, assess, and implement early risk- reduction interventions that will reduce the spillover and spread of these threats; and 3) recognize and respond rapidly to zoonotic spillover events.