PREDICT was an

epidemiological Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...

research program funded by a

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

(USAID) grant. Launched in 2009, the program was described as an early warning pandemic system.

Operations

PREDICT was launched in 2009 in response to the influenza A virus subtype H5N1 "bird flu" outbreak in 2005. It was designed and overseen by Dennis Carroll, then the director of the USAID emerging threats division, with epidemiologist Jonna Mazet of the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

as its global director. The program was one of four projects within USAID's Emerging Pandemic Threats program, the others being RESPOND, IDENTIFY, and PREVENT. From 2009 to 2019, PREDICT collected more than 140,000 biological samples from various animals (potential reservoirs) including over 10,000

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

s and 2,000 other mammals.Emily Baumgaertner & James Rainey
Trump administration ended coronavirus detection program
''Los Angeles Times'' (April 2, 2020). Research teams of epidemiologists and wildlife

veterinarian A veterinarian (vet), also known as a veterinary surgeon or veterinary physician, is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, vet ...

s identified some 1,200 viruses with the potential to cause human disease and pandemics, including over 160 novel coronaviruses. The virus-hunting focused on "hot interfaces"—areas with high

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

, dense human populations, and environmental conditions are conducive to the spread of disease, and where human-animal interaction is high. PREDICT worked in regions including the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

, South and Southeast Asia, and the

Congo Basin The Congo Basin (french: Bassin du Congo) is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River. The Congo Basin is located in Central Africa, in a region known as west equatorial Africa. The Congo Basin region is sometimes known simply as the Congo. It con ...

. The approach of virus hunting by PREDICT and other agencies has been criticized as an ineffective way to prevent pandemics. One virologist noted that cataloguing viruses was not enough, as spillover infections are often unexpected and difficult to predict. Also, viruses mutate quickly, making some die out while others can mutate to new hosts. Efforts by PREDICT resulted in the discovery of a new kind of ''

Ebolavirus The genus ''Ebolavirus'' (- or ; - or ) is a virological taxon included in the family ''Filoviridae'' (filament-shaped viruses), order ''Mononegavirales''. The members of this genus are called ebolaviruses, and encode their genome in the form ...

'', Bombali ebolavirus. PREDICT partnered with EcoHealth Alliance for its work.

Funding and closure

PREDICT operated on five-year funding cycles, receiving about $200 million over the course of its decade in operation. Fieldwork ceased at the end of September 2019 after funding ran out, and the program was ended in March 2020 by the Trump administration,Zachary Cohen
Trump administration shuttered pandemic monitoring program, then scrambled to extend it
CNN (April 10, 2020). which has also cut funding for other global health security programs. In February 2020, Senators Angus King and Elizabeth Warren criticized the shutdown of PREDICT, writing in a letter: "The rise of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, 2019-nCoV heightens the need for a robust, coordinated, and proactive response to emerging pandemics – one of the roles that PREDICT played." The senators wrote that the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (which is caused by 2019-nCoV) "threatens public health in the U.S. and abroad" and said that programs like PREDICT should be ramping up rather than shutting down. On April 1, 2020, following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, USAID granted $2.26 million to the program for a six-month emergency extension;Zachary Cohen
Trump administration shuttered pandemic monitoring program, then scrambled to extend it
CNN (April 10, 2020). the UC Davis announcement said that the extension would support "detection of SARS CoV-2 cases in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to inform the public health response" and investigation of "the animal source or sources of SARS CoV-2 using data and samples collected over the past 10 years in Asia and Southeast Asia."

Operations

Funding and closure

See also

References

Further reading