Pictured is Dr. Christopher Kasanga of the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Morogoro who has been awarded a highly prestigious fellowship by UK Charity, Wellcome Trust.
Dr. Kasanga who is also a senior lecturer of Virology, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at SUA becomes the first Tanzanian recipient of such an award.
He will be able, over the next five years, to undertake basic and discovery research on the evolutionary characteristics of the foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) strains in Africa that could be associated with future epidemics in Africa and beyond.
A highly contagious disease, FMD affects livestock such as cattle, swine, sheep and goats as well as a variety of cloven hoofed wild animals. Countries, like Tanzania and most of Sub-Saharan Africa where this disease occurs frequently are barred from exporting animals and animal products, such as beef, to the industrialised countries where this disease has been eliminated.
The unique significance of this new research is the identification of early genomic changes that are likely to lead to broader antigenic and virulence characteristics, the knowledge of which could be crucial in defining early interventions, including vaccine strain selection before such changes result in wide-scale epidemics of FMD.
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