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Navy Medical Research Command (NMRC) is currently wrapping up decade-long efforts into studying potential health threats and solutions that face U.S. service members in Australia.
In November 2011, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and President Barack Obama announced two new force posture initiatives intended to significantly enhance defense cooperation between Australia and the United States. The first involved the U.S. Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force, increasing rotations of U.S. aircraft through northern Australia. The second initiative created the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D), a U.S. Marine Air Ground Task Force that trains with the Australian Defense Force in the Northern Territories during a six-month deployment.
These activities involve regular and ongoing exposure to soil, dust, surface water and arthropods; all potential sources of infectious diseases that are otherwise rarely encountered by U.S. forces.
This exposure necessitated proactive efforts to evaluate these new health threats.
“As soon as we became aware of the permanent six-month rotation of Marines in Northern Australia, our scientists recognized the need and opportunity to provide biosurveillance support against infectious diseases to those Marines units deploying to a truly austere environment,” explained Capt. Guillermo Pimentel, Director of the NMRC’s Biological Disease Research Directorate’s (BDRD),
In the absence of a Department of Defense team dedicated to Severe Sepsis Syndrome in operational environments, BDRD has worked in partnership with the Austere environments Consortium for Enhanced Sepsis Outcomes (ACESO) team on a series of research studies focused on MRF-D over the past decade.
“Having a research team co-located with our service members during training and operational exercises helps ensure our ability to understand and quantify infectious disease threats in theater,” said Dr. Chad Porter, head of NMRC’s Translational and Clinical Research Department.
The NMRC-ACESO team assessed the risk to service members of Burkholderia pseudomallei, which causes melioidosis, a bacterial infection in people and animals that is spread through contact with contaminated soil, air, or water. Researchers also developed and refined methods for diagnosing B. pseudomallei, with the goal of more rapidly detecting and managing outbreaks of the pathogen, something particularly important for infections with non-specific symptoms.
In addition to B. pseudomallei, NMRC-ACESO researchers studied Coxiella burnetii, which causes Q fever, a bacteria that naturally infect some animals, such as goats, sheep, and cows; and Ross River virus, which is primarily spread by mosquitoes and can cause swollen or painful joints, fever, rash, and fatigue. By establishing studies with service members in MFR-D, NMRC and ACESO have made initial estimates of the risk of these infectious disease threats to U.S. Marines in Australia.
ACESO focuses on the generation of knowledge that can rapidly translate into preventing and improving the outcome of severe infections in the austere setting. This consortium consists of investigators from military medical research institutes and world-class civilian research entities to execute a coordinated program of research aimed at improving prevention, early recognition, diagnosis, and effective treatment of severe infections from all causes in austere environments.
NMRC is engaged in a broad spectrum of activities, from basic science in the laboratory to field studies in austere and remote areas of the world to investigations in operational environments. In support of the Navy, Marine Corps, and joint U.S. warfighters, researchers study infectious diseases, biological warfare detection and defense, combat casualty care, environmental health concerns, aerospace and undersea medicine, medical modeling, simulation, operational mission support, epidemiology and behavioral sciences.
| Date Taken: | 12.16.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.16.2024 13:06 |
| Story ID: | 487590 |
| Location: | SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 119 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NMRC-ACESO Research Collaboration Draws to a Close, by Sidney Hinds, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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