Professor and Chair of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health
Dr. Albert Icksang Ko, an infectious disease physician, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health and Collaborating Researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazilian Ministry of Health. His research centers on the health problems that have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization and social inequity. Dr. Ko leads a research and training program on urban slum health in Brazil which combines multidisciplinary approaches to identify prevention and control strategies for emerging infectious diseases such as Zika, dengue and leptospirosis.
He is also a Program Director for the NIH-supported Global Health Equity Scholars Program, which provides training opportunities for fellows and students at 21 international sites.
Dr. Ko serves as a member of the WHO R&D Taskforce for Zika Virus and WHO R&D Blueprint Working Group on Clinical Trial Design. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has mobilized investigators at Yale for the goal of implementing clinical and translational research, developing new diagnostics, and preparing cohorts for intervention trials. Dr. Ko served as co-chair of the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group and continues to advise the State on its COVID-19 prevention and control plan.
Research: areas of interest
Urban slum health, emerging infections, zoonotic diseases, vaccine and diagnostic test development, public health control and prevention of emerging infections.
Publications
- Ko AI, Reis MG, Dourado CR, Johnson Jr WD, Riley LW. Urban epidemic of severe Leptospirosis in Brazil. Salvador Leptospirosis Study Group.Lancet 1999;354:820-825.
- Reis RB, Ribeiro GS, Felzemburgh RDM, Santana FS, Mohr S, Melendez AXTO, Queiroz A, Santos AC, Ravines RR, Tassinari WS, Carvalho MS, Reis MG, Ko AI. Impact of environment and social gradient of Leptospira infection in urban slums. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2008;2(4):e228.
- Costa F, Hagan JE, Calcagno J, Kane M, Torgerson P, Martinez-Silveira MS, Stein C, Abela-Ridder B, Ko AI. Global Morbidity and Mortality of Leptospirosis: A Systematic Review.PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2015;9(9): e0003898.
- Rodriguez-Barraquer I, Costa F, Nascimento EJM, Nery Junior N et al, Marques ETA, Cumming DAT, Ko AI. Impact of preexisting dengue immunity on Zika vírus emergence in a dengue endemic region.Science. 2019;363(6427):607-610.
- Musso D, Ko AI, Baud D.Zika Virus Infection: After the Pandemic. N Engl J Med. 2019;381(15):1444-1557.
- Wyllie AL, Fournier J, Casanovas-Massana A, Campbell M, Tokuyama M, Vijayakumar P, Warren JL, Geng B, Muenker MC, Moore AJ, Vogels CBF, Petrone ME, Ott IM, Lu P, Venkataraman A, Lu-Culligan A, Klein J, Earnest R, Simonov M, Datta R, Handoko R, Naushad N, Sewanan LR, Valdez J, White EB, Lapidus S, Kalinich CC, Jiang X, Kim DJ, Kudo E, Linehan M, Mao T, Moriyama M, Oh JE, Park A, Silva J, Song E, Takahashi T, Taura M, Weizman OE, Wong P, Yang Y, Bermejo S, Odio C, Omer SB, Dela Cruz CS , Farhadian S, Martinello RA, Iwasaki AI, Grubaugh ND, Ko AI. Saliva vs nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 detection. medRxiv. 2020.04.16.20067835; doi:10.1101/2020.04.16.20067835. New Engl J Med. In press.