Wild animal health monitoring and introduction of new biotechnology procedures in detection of infectious and zoonotic agents – risk analysis for human health, domestic and wild animal health and for environmental contamination

The objective of the research is infectious and zoonotic diseases of wild animals and their effects on occurrence and spread of disease in domestic animals and humans. Since highly complex, research was divided into three associated parts. The first one encompasses monitoring of presence, prevalence and significance of infectious and zoonotic wildlife pathogens, as causative agents of important health-economic losses. The second includes research of biological and chemical agents in game meat, monitoring prevalence of zoonotic agents in humans and hazards to human health. The third segment encompasses research of pathogens and heavy metals in the environment, which could endanger animal and human health. Besides standard methods, novel biotechnological procedures will be developed – highly sensitive and specific tests for rapid detection of pathogens and modern epidemiological tools for monitoring–molecular typing and GIS. The expected results include reports on prevalence and characterization of important pathogens in wild animals, humans and in the environment; development of modern biotechnological methods for agents detection and characterization; risk assessment and models for control of pathogens and heavy metals in the environment, wild animals and humans; creating of a wildlife health risk web-site and database. The research will significantly improve knowledge on infectious and zoonotic diseases in wildlife and humans in Serbia and on methods for their control