Abstract
The past decades have seen a dramatic increase of emerging and/or re-emerging infectious diseases worldwide. More outbreaks are foreseen for the future, yet proactive surveillance remains limited due to many challenges including lack of technical expertise and characterization of reliable sentinel sample types for accurate detection of circulating pathogens reflecting potential zoonotic spillover threats. The Remote Emerging Disease Intelligence-NETwork (REDI-NET) is a phased initiative project which aims to enhance current surveillance efforts to detect, predict and contain potential emerging infectious diseases in an efficient and timely manner using real-time long read shotgun metagenomic sequencing surveillance outputs in a flexible, scalable data repository and computing platform to support detection of pathogens, estimate risk of exposure and guide policy-decisions on animal, environmental and public health.Our core objectives focus on leveraging partner expertise to fill gaps in existing surveillance efforts to include 1) strengthening infrastructure where capacity may need to be built and/or enhanced (remote research stations); 2) standardizing sample collection, storage, and testing processes for assurances in data rigor and big data management; 3) leveraging existing networks and health data to widen the global surveillance footprint; and 4) transferring knowledge on surveillance system activities and providing actionable data. Here we will present program successes to date from early phases and describe next steps in expanding the operational framework with broad applicability across international regions.