FORT DETRICK, Md. – The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases recently demonstrated its ability to rapidly deploy a comprehensive biosurveillance capability overseas as part of African Lion 2025, U.S. Africa Command’s largest annual joint exercise. USAMRIID’s participation highlighted the innovative biosurveillance capabilities in its arsenal for providing actionable data to combatant commanders to assist in force-health protection measures to combat endemic and emerging biothreats.
Capt. C. Ian Davis, deputy chief of the Applied Diagnostics Branch in USAMRIID’s Diagnostic Systems Division, worked with a team of biosurveillance specialists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and WRAIR-Africa to collect environmental and biological samples for analysis using advanced rapid genetic sequencing technologies, including polymerase chain reaction enhanced by molecular inversion probes, an innovative technique pioneered at USAMRIID.
“African Lion was a great exercise and a team effort from USAMRIID,” says Davis. “Ensuring the exercise went smoothly was huge lift by all those involved.”
USAMRIID and WRAIR participated in African Lion at the invitation of the DOD's Global Emerging Infections Surveillance program, which operates a global network of laboratories focused on mitigating threats to Service Members posed by novel and highly infectious diseases. USAMRIID and WRAIR both provide reachback capability to GEIS as part of their global biosurveillance missions. Prior to the start of African Lion, GEIS set up a laboratory space for the surveillance team in the coastal city of Agadir in Morocco; during the exercise, Davis arrived with USAMRIID’s testing equipment and chemical reagents packed safely in padded and insulated protective cases. The only items missing were a refrigerator and a freezer – which local personnel were able to quickly procure for the team.
The biosurveillance team’s participation in African Lion 2025 represented the largest field sequencing activity conducted by USAMRIID at an exercise in many years. For nearly two weeks, the team was busy analyzing entomological samples collected from the environment for signs of infectious diseases. The lab was collocated with the exercise’s first-aid facility, which made it easy for the team to procure samples from Service Members reporting for sick call, to ensure they had not been exposed to infectious diseases during the exercise.
This was USAMRIID’s first time participating in African Lion, in which over 10,000 troops from more than 40 nations engaged in military and humanitarian exercises in Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, and Senegal.
Dr. Christopher Stefan, chief of USAMRIID’s Developmental Diagnostics Branch, who prepared the master mix of biosurveillance probes that the team used as well as the DNA sequencing protocols that they followed, said that all of the equipment survived the flight to Morocco and performed as intended, and that the exercise was “extremely successful.”
“There were many moving parts to this mission and a lot of planning involved,” says Stefan. “We went with the intent of measuring several hundred samples, so the pack-out was quite large. We ended up over-preparing, which, as it turned out, was a good thing. The largest benefit of this exercise was that we successfully demonstrated that we could ship all the necessary equipment, get it set up quickly, process large numbers of samples, and use targeted sequencing to screen a lot of different targets quickly and efficiently. From my perspective, everything worked extremely well.”
Lt. Col. M. Kelly Hourihan, director of USAMRIID’s Special Pathogens Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory, says that the knowledge gained at African Lion will also be used to inform planning for future exercises by helping planners identify prevalent pathogens in the region so that they can take appropriate preventive measures prior to departing for the exercise.
Dr. Keersten Ricks, chief of the Diagnostic Systems Division, says USAMRIID’s unique operational mission to field diagnostic tools to far-forward operational units or other operational environments dovetails well with GEIS’ mission of performing targeted biosurveillance worldwide through multinational exercises such as African Lion.
“Because of our work with GEIS, the word is getting out to the operational community and exercise planners that USAMRIID is developing tools that can be fielded in various operational environments,” says Ricks. “I think as we showcase and field the technologies that we offer and the capabilities that we have, we have become more integrated with the operational community. The ultimate goal is to develop, validate, and field a diagnostic and biosurveillance toolbox that can be used in various operational environments to help protect the force and support medical readiness.”
USAMRIID's participation in African Lion is an effective demonstration of USAMRIID’s proficiency in executing medical logistics swiftly and efficiently to wherever in the world biosurveillance is needed on short notice. It also highlights the central importance of medical logistics in support of modern combat operations and training.
“It's a lesson in the ability to adapt and overcome,” says Ricks. “Successful medical logistics requires flexibility, patience, and trust in your preparation and planning, and your ability to improvise solutions when you get there. African Lion was a great example of how well USAMRIID exemplifies those capabilities.”
Maj. Luis Pow Sang, WRAIR-Africa’s chief of microbiology, said that bringing together specialists from across the Defense Health Agency Research & Development-Medical Research and Development Command was valuable not only for the biosurveillance mission, but also for the team members.
“We here in WRAIR-Africa are mainly focused on surveillance, while USAMRIID is mainly focused on research and bringing new technologies to the field,” says Pow Sang. “This exercise was an opportunity for them to gain a perspective on how their technologies are being utilized, which also helps them improve their technologies. Bringing together different teams from across this huge enterprise is very useful for the overall goal of biosurveillance.”
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