Emerging viral infections represent a major threat to the global health and their early detection may help anticipate outbreaks, improve patient’s care and plan appropriate Public Health level intervention strategies.
However, simultaneous serological detection of multiple viral infections is not amenable to routine utilization with conventional methods such as ELISA and Western blot. Our laboratory is investigating virus spillover at the human/wildlife interface in equatorial Africa with a specific focus on HIV/SIV (Human/Simian Immunedeficiency Viruses) and ebolaviruses. To identify the animal reservoir of ebolaviruses and to detect additional SIVs, to detect potential new cross-species transmissions from wildlife to humans and to anticipate future outbreaks, we developed in-house xMAP methods using Luminex® microspheres on BioPlex200 to screen for SIV and
ebolaviruses from diverse wildlife and Man in Africa. The xMAP technology has changed our way of hunting viruses in samples available, for some, at minute amount. xMAP helped us identify new viruses and helped us showing evidence of persistent cross-species transmissions of retroviruses in Africa.

This project is now running for ten years. The talk will share with the xMAP community our findings on retrovirology (HIV/SIV), on filoviruses (ebolavirus) and beyond.