Branco Weiss Fellow Since
2019
Research Category
Biological Sciences, Public Health
Research Location
Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention, Program in Public Health, University of California Irvine, USA
Background
The world has seen a major increase in the number of forced migrants since 2015. Owing to the hardships of their journeys and the disruption of care, internally displaced people, refugees, and asylum seekers are at a higher risk of transmitting and acquiring chronic viral infections such as HIV and HCV. However, when infections in migrants are diagnosed, it is impossible to know whether they were acquired in their home countries or in waiting camps upon arrival in destination countries.
Phylodynamics, a branch of evolutionary biology, relies on viral genetic sequences to study viral phylogenetic trees and virus transmission dynamics. However, HIV and HCV data are rarely available from hard-to-reach populations such as forced migrants. Portable genetic sequencing technologies can be used “in the field”, away from well-equipped laboratories, allowing rapid answers to questions about virus transmissions in migrant populations.
Details of Research
Dr. Tetyana Vasylyeva will use portable genetic sequencing and molecular epidemiology to study HIV and HCV in internally displaced populations in Ukraine and in refugees in Italy. The study will include data collection (behavior and viral genetic data) in refugee camps and places of concentrated living for migrants, as well as phylodynamic and phylogeographic data analysis. Dr. Vasylyeva aims to answer questions about when virus transmissions happen (home/receiving country, or waiting camps), which can help to develop targeted preventative strategies in forced migrants’ communities. She will also include viral genetic data available from the host countries’ autochthonous population to identify and quantify viral exchange between the migrant and host communities. This research can contribute to the debate about migrants’ influence on epidemics in receiving countries.
In the best tradition of Branco Weiss-supported research,[nbsp]Dr. Vasylyeva’s project allows the deployment of a state-of-the-art scientific technology to resolve an urgent sociopolitical issue, now in a real-time field research framework.
