Mosquitos normally transmit West Nile virus between birds. Occasionally, humans are infected and this can cause neurological diseases and even death. There are West Nile disease outbreaks in new countries every year. Increasing our knowledge of the epidemiology and ecology of the virus may enable us to prevent such outbreaks.

The project exploits the expertise of excellent research groups from various countries and scientific disciplines. State-of-the-art knowledge of virology, entomology, ecology, epidemiology and modelling is used to understand the behaviour of the virus in countries including Russia, Israel, Austria, Italy, Spain and Senegal.