Students training in a lab — The PREDICT Project has been supporting partners in Asia and Africa, providing technical assistance for laboratory response during the COVID-19 outbreak, including laboratories in Thailand, Cambodia, and Nepal. (PREDICT)

PREDICT Receives Extension for COVID-19 Pandemic Emergency Response

by Kristin P Burns
March 31, 2020

Early Laboratory Detection of SARS CoV-2, Tracking Animal Source Among Priorities

PREDICT will provide emergency support to other countries for outbreak response including technical support for early detection of SARS CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, through a six-month extension from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), effective April 1.

The 10-year PREDICT Project, part of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats Program, was initiated in 2009 to strengthen health security and global capacity for the detection and discovery of viruses of pandemic potential that can move between animals and people.

Led by the One Health Institute in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine with consortium partners around the world, the project has worked in more than 30 countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America to enable zoonotic disease detection capabilities in more than 60 laboratories and train a One Health workforce of nearly 7,000 cross-trained professionals.