OUR MISSION

Identify and potentially zoonotic pathogens in Sri Lanka

IDEA project was established in Sri Lanka as a collaboration between Robert Koch Institute Germany and University of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2017 to probe into the much-unexplored area of potentially zoonotic infectious agents from Sri Lankan wildlife.

Sri Lanka is a country with a rich diversity of wild animals and the people of Sri Lanka live with them in harmony. In recent years with the development projects and agricultural expansions, wild populations get stressed and the balance in ecosystems is under threat. Here we see a potential threat for spillover events of pathogens.

Realizing the need to strengthen capacities in rapid and reliable infectious disease identification and characterization, the Department of Zoology and Environment Sciences has initiated the IDEA project with the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.