Outbreak Research Team

In view of current global health challenges, and with support of the Flemish Ministry of Sciences, ITM has established an Outbreak Research Team (ORT) with the aim to conduct collaborative and interdisciplinary research on epidemic outbreaks of tropical and infectious diseases, especially but not exclusively in low and middle income countries. On the one hand the ORT researches outbreaks of “known” pathogens such as measles, cholera, meningococcal meningitis and multi-drug resistant bacteria, while on the other hand the ORT is at the ready to respond to outbreaks of new pathogens or outbreaks of known pathogens but presenting an unusual scale or unknown features such as the recent Ebola virus, Zika virus and plague outbreaks.
The ORT works across disciplinary and thematic with the following main research foci: (1) understanding drivers of transmission and spread of epidemic outbreaks; (2) design and evaluation of diagnostic methods for epidemic pathogens; (3) management, analysis and modelling of outbreak data; (4) development and evaluation of interventions to control and prevent outbreaks, including the involvement of and impact on regular health services and systems.