Kota Kinabalu: The Sabah Wildlife Department and Conservation Medicine renewed their collaboration to monitor wildlife health and diseases that can spread from animals to humans.
SWD Director Mohd Soffian Abu Bakar said the collaboration, which started in 2011, had strengthened Sabah’s position as a regional leader in biosafety and conservation research.
He said the initiative plays a key role in enabling early identification of zoonotic diseases and timely response measures.
“By understanding how these diseases occur and spread among wildlife, we are better prepared to detect spillover risks early, reduce threats to humans and livestock, and strengthen wildlife management strategies,” he said in a statement.
Central to the partnership is the Wildlife Health and Genetic Forensic Laboratory (WHGFL), developed with the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) in the lower Kinabatangan.
The laboratory has met international standards since 2013 and received ISO17025 accreditation in 2024, placing it among only 11 specialised wildlife laboratories worldwide to achieve this status.
The accreditation enables SWD to use laboratory findings as forensic evidence in court, reinforcing enforcement efforts against illegal wildlife trade and poaching.
CM Director Tom Hughes said the rising interaction between humans, farm animals and wildlife — driven by agricultural expansion, hunting and land-use changes — has increased the risk of new diseases emerging.
“Over the past century, an average of two diseases per year have crossed from animals to humans,” he said.
In 2013, both organisations also set up the Sabah Wildlife Health Unit (WHU), which monitors the health of rescued and relocated animals and carries out wildlife sampling across the state.
CM has provided continuous training for SWD personnel in laboratory safety, disease testing and outbreak response.
The statement said disease research is crucial for conservation work. Surveillance of confiscated and rescued Sunda pangolins confirmed that the species was not a source or intermediary host of Sars-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19.
It added that virus detections in pangolins were likely linked to exposure during illegal wildlife trafficking, highlighting the need to curb the wildlife trade, improve biosecurity at wet markets and strengthen pangolin conservation efforts.
Beyond Sabah, CM has worked with the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit and the World Health Organisation’s South-East Asia Regional Office (WHO SEARO) to develop a practical guide for implementing the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual (4th Edition).
The guide provides clear, step-by-step biosafety instructions designed for low-resource settings but applicable globally.
