Management of Emerging Risks in Southeast Asia (GREASE)

Through synergies and the pooling of expertise on a regional scale, this Southeast Asian network is seeking to improve the management of the risks associated with cross-border and emerging diseases in the fields of animal health and veterinary public health. It brings together decision-makers and health stakeholders (veterinary services of the countries concerned, international organisations, research institutes, cooperation agencies etc.).

In Southeast Asia, multiple ecological and socio-economic factors have led to the development of agro-ecosystems that are particularly conducive to the emergence and spread of animal and zoonotic diseases. Furthermore, the creation of this network to tackle the major challenge posed by emerging animal diseases, especially zoonoses, offers a ‘One Health’ approach to meeting a major regional problem.

Through workshops and training, scientific missions and meetings, the network brings together partners from various fields: researchers from different disciplines and international and institutional experts. A major objective of the network is to integrate the biological and social sciences. As such, various ongoing research programmes mobilise the implementation of participatory research approaches.

Objectives

  • Organising and facilitating research and training at the regional scale
  • Developing integrated and multidisciplinary strategies to study health emergencies
  • Participating in the construction and dissemination of generic models for the management of emerging diseases in veterinary public health, adapted to local socio-economic and socio-political contexts

Research topics

  • Ecology and anthropology of health taking a ‘One Health’ approach
  • Methods for evaluating surveillance systems including their economic and social aspects
  • Eco-epidemiology of animal influenza
  • Emergence of zoonotic diseases (swine, wild reservoirs, rodents etc.)
  • Development of modelling tools derived from graph theory (SNA) and the accompanying modelling
  • Sociology, governance and perceptions of health risks in a ‘One Health’ framework

Partners

Six members are signatories of a regional Memorandum of Understanding (MoU):

  • Central Mindanao University (CMU), Philippines
  • CIRAD
  • Kasetsart University (KU), Thailand
  • National Institute for Veterinary Research (NIVR), Vietnam 
  • National University of Laos, Nabong Agricultural College (NUOL)
  • National Veterinary Research Institute (NaVRI), Cambodia

A dynamic network of associated partner institutions and observers is involved in GREASE research projects and thematic training:

  • CNRS and IRD, France
  • Pasteur Institute, Cambodia
  • Thammasat University (Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology) and Mahidol University (Faculty of Tropical Medicine), Thailand
  • Gadjah Mada University and the Indonesian Centre for Animal Research and Development (ICARD), Indonesia
  • University of Hong Kong
  • Murdoch University, Australia
  • OIE - World Organisation for Animal Health and FAO for international organisation
  • French Embassy in Bangkok (regional health action) and USAID (RESPOND and PREVENT programmes) for regional cooperation programmes

Outlook

Other research organisations, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Singapore, have shown interest in the network and their medium-term inclusion is already under consideration.

Eventually, this Southeast Asian regional network will be integrated into a larger structuring mechanism that will bring together all those areas in which CIRAD operates in a large inter-tropical network. Meetings between researchers and training is scheduled each year in order to jointly co-construct, with the members of the network and some observers, the research priorities within geo-epidemiological areas which are yet to be defined.