We present one of the first studies to compare the perspectives of wildlife officials and project scientists in the field of wildlife surveillance for zoonotic pathogens in an attempt to understand gaps in perceptions that could lead to differential investments of governments from those of international aid organizations and the private sector in pandemic prevention. Findings from this research allow for a better understanding of key components (priority interfaces, opportunities, and challenges) associated with supporting surveillance programs on local, regional, and global scales in order to identify strengths, weaknesses, and future action areas related to implementing zoonotic pathogen surveillance in wildlife. This study was useful for implementation of PREDICT project activities by not solely relying on the PREDICT project scientists’ perceptions so that a more balanced understanding of wildlife surveillance capacity in each country could be obtained, and will indirectly benefit wildlife even if originally motivated by public health needs. Taking a One Health approach further to assemble transdisciplinary working groups with common interests will allow constituents such as researchers, organizations, governments, and communities to focus on innovative capacity building activities.
The global health community is increasingly recognizing the intrinsic importance of capacity development and assessment, consistent with the motivation for this study and for the PREDICT project overall. In a study examining global trends in emerging infectious diseases from 1940 to 2004, researchers found that the global resources needed to counteract disease emergence were disproportionately focused in regions where emerging disease events were least likely to originate, such as in the developed nations of Europe, North America, Australia, and parts of Asia [7]. Due to factors such as globalization and urbanization, diseases that emerge in once isolated areas now have the ability to cause global health crises [11]. This interconnectivity highlights the fact that any surveillance gaps at the individual country level can affect global health. Recognizing this disparity across countries, numerous efforts to build and strengthen the capacity for disease detection and response in these ‘hot spots’ – regions identified as likely for the emergence of novel pathogens from wildlife that affect human health – were undertaken [12]. The PREDICT project, along with partner organizations in over 20 developing countries, specifically concentrated on preventing future pandemics at potential sources through the promotion of increased capacity, enhanced surveillance programs in wildlife, and a better understanding of the drivers associated with emerging health threats [13]. This study, conducted by PREDICT’s capacity tracking team, was just one area of focus in the larger effort for global pandemic surveillance, prediction, and prevention.
Study findings revealed differences and similarities regarding priorities, challenges, and opportunities for wildlife surveillance for zoonotic pathogens between the stakeholders. The wildlife official and project scientist groups both indicated the importance of working at key human-animal interfaces, such as the hunting locations, markets, wildlife near dwellings, wildlife-livestock interaction, captive wildlife, and extraction areas. Discrepancies across stakeholder groups regarding the relative importance of other interfaces could have been due to differences seen in each organization’s current focus or limitations in each individual’s area of expertise. However, gaps in program presence at interfaces that were labeled as important by wildlife officials, such as areas where wildlife were butchered, shared water sources, and land use change, remain a key focus for program improvement and stakeholder education. It is essential to note that wildlife officials were not required to rank the relative importance of the interfaces, and thus could identify as many choices as ‘important’ as they thought appropriate. While the instructions to the project scientists were no different, the nature of their work required the prioritization and ranking of the relative importance of interfaces on a daily basis to decide how their financial and time resources would be spent. Therefore, project scientists were more likely to have a larger spread in their rankings across categories than wildlife officials.
Both stakeholder groups agreed that the lack of sustainable funding was the greatest challenge facing wildlife surveillance for zoonotic pathogens today. However, different opportunities for improving wildlife surveillance for zoonotic pathogens were identified between the stakeholder groups. This could be due to the fact that most project scientists were representatives from non-governmental organizations or universities, whereas the wildlife officials were from governmental organizations, and as such, the opportunities familiar to the individuals within their respective organizations were likely specific to the chances to improve capacity provided to them within their organizational framework. Discovering ways to collaborate and capitalize on these opportunities across sectors is an important step in building successful wildlife pathogen surveillance programs in each country. Additionally, the fact that knowledge of outbreaks potentially originating in wildlife varied by global region suggests that there was a lack of sufficient communication across stakeholder groups and that there is a need to raise awareness among stakeholders on wildlife health issues in relation to public health.
In addition to current high priority interfaces where PREDICT surveillance efforts were targeted, additional key interfaces were identified as important from the majority of wildlife officials, such as shared water sources, and should be given consideration for future surveillance efforts. Given limited resources, it was not surprising that all human-wildlife interfaces could not be addressed in the initial PREDICT surveillance program. For example, shared water sources were a lower priority for surveillance because they represented primarily indirect opportunities for zoonotic pathogen transmission given the dynamics at play where humans and animals often utilize water sources at different times. On the other hand, areas where there were more direct interactions between wildlife and humans, and thus a greater potential for pathogen transmission, were targeted more often (e.g. markets). Opportunities, such as a growing interest or awareness regarding wildlife disease or surveillance programs, could be used a starting point to obtain the funding needed to increase both human and laboratory capacity for wildlife pathogen surveillance.
Using stakeholders to identify and help to prioritize future research directions has long been recommended [14–17]. The PREDICT project has put this principle into action by placing in-country experts, who were also wildlife stakeholders, in key longitudinal programmatic positions and by using the rapid tool surveys as a way to reach out to incorporate input from external stakeholder groups, as well. From a global health perspective, this assessment was helpful in not only meeting a short-term goal of gaining perspectives of people both within and outside the project, but also a long-term goal of obtaining buy-in and input from stakeholders to promote project sustainability within and among the hotspot regions.
This study was not without limitations, given that the field of wildlife pathogen surveillance and associated best practices continue to evolve. It was recognized that the interfaces, challenges, and opportunities listed were subjective, and there was often overlap among categories. However, the options given at the time of the survey represented the main themes encountered in wildlife surveillance. The survey also concentrated on the zoonotic transmission of pathogens at key human-animal interfaces and did not specifically focus on other pathogen transmission routes in ecosystems which are extremely important from a One Health perspective, such as anthroponoses and pathogens solely transmitted in non-human animals. Furthermore, this study consisted of a convenience sample of a limited number of wildlife officials chosen by the project scientists. The limited sample size restricted the generalizations that could be made beyond participating countries. However, similarities on the importance of the interfaces, associated challenges, and opportunities for conducting zoonotic pathogen surveillance in wildlife would likely be seen across global regions.
A potential for information bias existed due to the fact that the survey administration was different between the two groups, as the project scientists filled out the survey as directed by their supervisors, whereas the wildlife officials were mostly interviewed by the project scientists and participated on a voluntary basis, providing the opportunity for interviewer bias to arise. However, the results still showed important differences even at the regional level, suggesting that different global regions may have unique issues that could relate to specific human-animal interactions in that region or to the varying level of infrastructure and development by region, for example the fact that the Latin America region is considered more developed than the Asia and Africa regions may present different challenges and opportunities for wildlife surveillance. The rankings were derived from survey responses that indicated whether a stakeholder thought the priority interfaces, challenges, or opportunities were important to wildlife pathogen surveillance in his or her country specifically; therefore, it would be difficult to determine if a negative response was an indication that the descriptor was not applicable to the country, or if it was just simply not considered to be important by the respondent.
Future areas of research should include a greater number and range of stakeholders (i.e. varying level of professional titles, education) in order to better understand differences at local, national, and regional levels. This research would help to elicit the benefits of taking a top-down or bottom-up approach to capacity building across different regions. Future surveys for capacity building and tracking should also aim to gain the perspectives of domestic animal health, public health, and environmental health professionals to truly build a One Health approach to disease detection for the next emerging health threat.
