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Recently, our team adapted the Living Safely With Bats Book for use in the Amazonian region of Peru, where people living in close proximity to bats is common. Originally developed for use in Africa and Asia (Martinez et al. 2022), the Living Safely with Bats books are moderated picture books designed to be shared with communities by a local facilitator. These books provide straightforward advice on how to coexist safely with bats using a One Health approach, and our team was excited to expand their use to a new region.

The “pre-emergence” phase of pandemics is the focus of a new center funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and led by the University of California, Davis. The NSF Center for Pandemic Insights (NSF CPI) aims to harness new technologies and develop sensing to detect, investigate, and ultimately prevent pandemics at their source.

Mathematical models are an important tool that the EpiCenter uses to understand the mechanisms associated with emerging infectious diseases. Although the thought of the many equations involved may be intimidating, the bigger picture is that these models can help to represent the transmission of viruses from one species or individual to another, and how that varies under different, complex conditions. In a dynamic environment affected by climate change and land use alterations, understanding the ways these changes can affect disease intensity and transmission is critical.