From the Daily Californian
September 7, 2020
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, granted nearly $8 million to UC Berkeley School of Public Health researchers Eva Harris and Josefina Coloma to study mosquito-borne viruses and pandemic preparedness in Asia and the Americas.
With the funds, which will be distributed over the next five years, Harris and Coloma will establish the American and Asian Centers for Arbovirus Research and Enhanced Surveillance, or A2CARES, on campus. Arboviruses are a class of viruses that are spread by mosquitoes and other arthropods — Zika, dengue and chikungunya are all caused by mosquito-borne arboviruses and will be studied further by Harris and Coloma, according to Harris.
A2CARES will be part of the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases, or CREID, consortium that includes several institutions in the United States and one in France, according to the CREID website. CREID will have research centers around the world, including Ecuador, Sri Lanka and Congo.