On the shores of Lake Edward, near Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a renovated building houses a research laboratory capable of handling serious diseases such as anthrax.
This building is the newest front in the hunt for zoonotic diseases — viruses that can cross over from animals to humans — and is at the forefront of a growing research movement that focuses on east Africa and other infection hotspots.
The recent emergence of Covid-19 and monkeypox, both of which jumped from animals to humans, have been a reminder of the power that such diseases have to reshape our world, and the importance of early identification and genomic sequencing to help stop their spread.