The greater-encompassing Virology Network emerged from a prior network dedicated to the Zika virus founded in 2016. This was in collaboration with the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, designed to characterize the clinical pictures and epidemiological data of the virus at location for a comprehensive picture of an emerging disease. The program was patient-oriented, providing diagnoses and follow-ups to those infected as well as analyzing patient manifestations of the virus through genomic studies. The current epidemiological schema in Venezuela and surrounding countries, has contributed to the growth of theVirology Network in the past years, to encompass the spectrum of viral disease spread by arbo vectors.
The projects seeded in the virology network emphasize the molecular, diagnostic, and entomological faces of emerging and re-emerging viral disease in Venezuela and further through South America.
Objectives of the virology network.
- The elucidation of the clinical picture and epidemiological tendencies of emerging and re-emerging tropical diseases of viral origin.
- To provide specialized training to a team of specialists oriented toward the management of viral diseases.
- To develop and standardize a series of diagnostic algorithms for the viral diseases being examined.
- To expand our national network of citizen scientists, who uphold within their communities, the prophylactic measures of viral disease, which our visiting medical team advocates for.
- To establish laboratories as bases for the study of locally-derived data samples from patients infected with viral pathogens, thereby informing a global academic community.