A construction of many hands – Newsletter Editorial
Our story begins in 2005 with Fiocruz's participation in the elaboration of the 1st National Report on Invasive Alien Species affecting Human Health, carried out by 52 Fiocruz researchers, part of the National Program for Biodiversity (Probio I), coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment. In 2009, with the opportunity to participate in Probio II, and the goal of mainstreaming biodiversity in various sectors in Brazil, we proposed the construction of a system that would integrate wildlife surveillance into human health surveillance. The challenge was to include the importance of wildlife health as a sentinel for anticipating human health problems and for conservation.
But what is the national capacity in studies on wildlife health? We started from the beginning and identified over 400 researchers in various Brazilian states dedicated to studying diseases and the health of native species, vectors, and pathogens. Of these, almost 70% were in various Fiocruz units, universities, and services. We gathered about 132 of them, from 53 Brazilian institutions, at the "State of the Art of Wildlife Health" Seminar, in 2009, in Itaipava, Rio de Janeiro. Together, we identified knowledge, gaps, risk maps, referrals, and the initial structure of what would become SISS-Geo.
But the knowledge needed to be consolidated, and in 2009, we also held the 1st Brazilian Conference on Wildlife Health in Rio de Janeiro, with the participation of about 300 national specialists and international guests. We worked in workshops and thus began the construction of the system's structure to monitor zoonoses in Brazil and how to anticipate them.
Until 2014, many workshops were held, with the participation of specialists from various fields of knowledge and regions of Brazil. From field researchers to those working in reference services, everyone contributed to the evaluation of the proposal, discussing necessary fields. Central elements were identified in these discussions: the need for georeferencing data; the opportunity to involve society in monitoring, based on an experience carried out in Serra da Capivara in Piauí; the use of computing, at that time imagined on desktop computers, which in itself would be an innovation; the need for taxonomic validation of animals and pathogens, and for this, we dedicated ourselves to the formation of the Participatory Wildlife Health Network, which, regrettably, we have not yet managed to advance on to this day.
1st Brazilian Conference on Wildlife Health, Rio de Janeiro. 2009
However, the ideas were already mature and the luck of knowing a telemedicine project from the Federal University of Santa Catarina gave the definitive impetus for the construction of the system, no longer on desktop computers and the Web, but on mobile phones. There were many challenges in doing what none of us had done before and in finding partners for it. We found them at LNCC, with Dr. Pedro Dias, Luiz Gadelha, Hélio Barbosa and their students.
CISS and SISS-Geo were launched on March 21, 2014, and since then we have started workshops for training users and multipliers with the community, traditional and indigenous peoples, health and environmental professionals, and other agencies. We tested the system in Pará, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro with the SISS-Geo project – Citizen Science and Digital Inclusion, with support from Funbio, and with indigenous, traditional, quilombola peoples, teachers, the community, and health, environmental professionals, and agencies, we improved its usability and accessibility every day.
Developing predictive models and identifying ecological factors that favor the occurrence of infectious agents circulating in wild animals, before they reach people, has always been one of the Platform's objectives. We brought together researchers from LNCC, Fiocruz, Brazilian Navy, University of Mexico, and postgraduate students, and began to dedicate ourselves to this study. From 2014 to 2024, many advances have been made, and our steps can be followed in the CISS Annual Bulletins and on social media with details, photographs, testimonials, interviews, and videos.
