Sarah Cleaveland

Dr. Sarah Cleaveland is a veterinary epidemiologist based at the Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, UK. Over the past 12 years, her research work has been centred in northern Tanzania, focusing on the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the human-wildlife-domestic animal interface, including rabies, canine distemper, bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, and echinococcosis. Key objectives of her research programme have been to: (a) to improve our understanding of the dynamics of infectious diseases in complex, multi-host communities, (b) to identify risk factors for disease emergence in human and animal populations, (c) to quantify the true burden of disease in human and livestock populations and (d) to optimise the design of zoonotic disease control strategies.

Rabies has been a principal interest for many years, triggered initially by concerns about disease threats to African wild dogs in the Serengeti, but now resulting in a wider involvement in rabies control throughout Africa and Asia. The complementary aims of several current research projects are to provide information necessary for the development of large-scale rabies control programmes in sub-Saharan Africa that will provide benefits both to public health and wildlife conservation.