ANR FLASH: Poxviruses in Farmed Ruminants

Funding is available to French researchers to support research in order to quickly address the public health crisis of diseases caused by poxviruses affecting ruminants in France and in Europe. 

The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – National Research Agency) was first established in 2005 and is governed by the French Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche (MESR – Ministry of Higher Education and Research). It provides funding to public research organisations and universities, as well as to private companies, for both basic and applied research in all fields of science. Its goals include promoting creativity and openness as well as new ideas and partnerships, in particular between academia and industry. It also seeks to improve the competitiveness of French research in Europe and around the world.

Through its FLASH system for addressing crises in the short term, ANR has launched a call for proposals to address the emergence, both in France and more widely in Europe, of highly contagious viral diseases caused by poxviruses that are particularly affecting farmed cows and, more broadly, domestic ruminants. These diseases, such as lumpy skin disease (LSD), have highlighted the vulnerability of farming systems, as well as the necessity to quickly obtain robust scientific knowledge and operational tools to anticipate, monitor and control this type of crisis, in order to to limit the economic and social impact as much as possible and to improve animal treatment.

Projects are expected to have a potential impact within 18 months of the award of funding in one of the following areas:

• Area 1: Genetic diversity, evolution and determinants of virulence of ruminant poxviruses.

This area aims to better characterise the genetic diversity, the evolution and the determinants of virulence of poxviruses that infect ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats), in particular strains circulating or likely to circulate in France and Europe. Research in this area will strengthen capacities for monitoring, anticipation and health management by producing directly usable knowledge for diagnosis, vaccination, outbreak management and spread risk assessment. 

• Area 2: Diagnosis, detection of poxviruses in ruminants and characterisation of vectors and vector control mechanisms.

This area aims to develop and improve diagnostic and monitoring tools for early and reliable detection of infectious, the monitoring of the health, immunity and vaccinal status of cattle as well as a better comprehension of the role of vectors and the environment in the spread of poxviruses in ruminants. Projects are expected to contribute to linking together the health of animals, the dynamics of viral spread, the nature and importance of vector communities and the conditions of environmental components (air, effluents, surfaces) in order to optimise control strategies for health crises, including vector control. Research results must enable the development of knowledge that can be rapidly mobilised by sector actors (eg diagnostics laboratories and public health authorities) in support of surveillance, outbreak management and adaptation to prevention and control measures. 

• Axis 3: Decision support tools for crisis management relating to ruminant poxviruses.

This area seeks to develop modelling, analysis and prospective approaches for evaluating the epidemiologic, economic, social and societal, as well as territorial impact of poxvirus infections in ruminants, alongside a range of control and prevention strategies to implement or envisage. Projects should combine public health, epidemiologic, economic and territorial data to compare control scenarios (vaccination, total or partial culling, restriction of movement, vector control, biosecurity measures) to analyse the costs, benefits and indirect effects of each, and to identify the efficacity and appropriation conditions for these measures. Research should contribute to producing decision support tools that can be mobilised in the short to medium term by public health authorities, both to manage the current crisis and to prepare and anticipate future crises linked to emerging animal diseases. This area of research should include a humanities and social science component.