Katie Hampson, now a professor of Infectious Disease Ecology at the University of Glasgow, began collecting data for a study back in 2002, when she was just starting her PhD at Princeton University. She was interested in understanding how rabies – a deadly disease that infects humans primarily through a dog bite – spreads and persists among dogs in Tanzania in Africa.
Rabies is an example of an endemic disease: it is prevalent in some populations, especially in Africa and Asia, at low levels, even though it causes many deaths upon an outbreak. What allows lethal diseases like rabies to persist long-term at low prevalence? This question has hounded many scientists. Intrigued by the endemic nature of rabies and wanting to understand it better, Dr. Hampson established a contact tracing network to track the spread of rabies among the 50,000 dogs and 250,000 people in the Serengeti district of northern Tanzania.
