Abbott Global Viral Surveillance Program

Surging ahead. Staying informed.
Abbott Global Viral Surveillance Program image
Abbott Global Viral Surveillance Program image
Abbott Global Viral Surveillance Program image

Since 1994, Abbott has been at the forefront of viral surveillance, with an unwavering commitment to monitor emerging and changing infectious diseases. As the only provider of infectious disease solutions with this large-scale Global Viral Surveillance Program, our mission is driven by two guiding principles:

  • Keeping pace with viral sequence heterogeneity and emerging strains in human populations
  • Enabling our tests to help detect diverse HIV and hepatitis strains regardless of where they evolve1

The race to stay ahead of viruses

Viral genetic diversity has the potential to impact a vast number of healthcare touchpoints.2Viral surveillance helps ensure laboratory tests continue to accurately detect divergent viruses regardless of where they are acquired.

How the program works

The Abbott Global Viral Surveillance Program pathway is fueled by collaboration, enabling us to proactively evaluate and solve infectious disease challenges.

  • Partner with laboratories and organizations across the world and source unique patient samples
  • Test samples on our on-market solutions, run them through research algorithms and sequence to fill in knowledge gaps
  • Discover new and rare strains and understand local epidemiologies
  • Share findings through peer reviewed journals
  • Fuel innovation and solution updates and make them available to global collaborators

A recent webinar provides a comprehensive overview of our surveillance work and its impact on diagnostic tools over the past decades.

Decades of discovery

Abbott is the only diagnostic manufacturer in the world to conduct a program of this magnitude and length of time. To date, we have collected over 70,000 samples containing HIV and hepatitis viruses creating one of the largest libraries of its kind in the world, and we’ve deposited more than 6,000 sequences into the GenBank® database. Our discoveries have also resulted in over 125 publications. 3-6

In recent collaborations, we discovered a case of a second human pegivirus (HPgV-2)3 and a new strain of HIV-1 Group M, subtype L.7

Recent work

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recent work image
recent work image

Abbott research team

Abbott researchers work with cutting edge technologies and collaborate with leading hospitals and organizations worldwide to test diverse specimens that carry viruses that may cause deadly diseases. In fact, Abbott is only 1 of 2 institutions in the world to have identified and characterized rare HIV Group N and P viruses.1,6,8

Global partnerships

Abbott partners with laboratories and organizations in 45 countries around the world, represented by the yellow triangles on the map below. The red triangles denote Abbott Global Surveillance sites.

  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Brazil
  • Burundi
  • Cameroon
  • China
  • Colombia
  • Croatia
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Egypt
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • France
  • Germany
  • Ghana
  • Greece
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Haiti
  • Honduras
  • India
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Ivory Coast
  • Kenya
  • Laos
  • Mexico
  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Peru
  • Philippines
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Senegal
  • South Africa
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Thailand
  • Uganda
  • United Kingdom (England)
  • United States
  • Venezuela
  • Vietnam
  • Zambia

Propelling future solutions

Propelling future solutions image
Propelling future solutions image
Propelling future solutions image

Decades of global surveillance research and ongoing vigilance consistently fuel Abbott’s next generation of infectious disease solutions

Collaboration

Connecting our global network of partnerships and making significant contributions to the scientific and medical community

Continuous performance monitoring

Using a unique collection of samples to challenge reliability of Abbott on-market tests

Innovation

Building the foundation for development of leading edge solutions that healthcare professionals and patients can trust

Get involved

Are you looking into the epidemiology, prevalence or diversity of HIV and hepatitis viruses? If you are an investigator from a research, clinical or blood banking institution and have a project you want to collaborate on, contact us. Learn how we can discover, publish and innovate together.

Get involved background image
Get involved background image
  1. Brennan CA, et al. HIV global surveillance: Foundation for retroviral discovery and assay development. Journal of Medical Virology. 2006; 78:S24-S29. 
  2. Pyne MT. et al. Large-scale analysis of the prevalence and geographic distribution of HIV-1 non-B variants in the United States. J. Clin. Microbiol. 2013; 51, 2662–2669. 
  3. Berg MG, et al. Discovery of a Novel Human Pegivirus in Blood Associated with Hepatitis C Virus Co-Infection. PLoS Pathogens. 2015 Dec 11; 11(12):e1005325. 
  4. Data on File at Abbott. 
  5. Vallari, A. et al. Confirmation of putative HIV-1 group P in Cameroon. J. Virology 2011 Feb; 85:1403-1407. 
  6. Rodgers MA, et al. Identification of rare HIV-1 Group N, HBV AE, and HTLV-3 strains in rural South Cameroon. Virology. 2017 Apr; 504:141-151.
  7. Yamaguchi J, et al. Complete genome sequence of CG-0018a-01 establishes HIV-1 subtype L. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes: November 06, 2019.
  8. Rodgers M, Wilkinson E, Vallari A, et al. Sensitive next-generation sequencing method reveals deep genetic diversity of HIV-1 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Journal of Virology. 2017; 91: e01841-16. 
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