Mark is the Executive Director of the SACIDS Foundation for One Health (formerly, the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance – SACIDS) located at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.
His current area of research interest is infectious diseases through a One Health approach. He has led SACIDS since its inception in 2008, directing its research capacity development in infectious diseases of humans and animals in the endemic settings of the African ecosystems. The strategy of SACIDS is based on 3 inter-linked approaches: (i) operating as a Virtual Centre that seeks to optimize the sharing of physical resources and human expertise across SACIDS member institutions in Southern and East Africa; (ii) organizing themed research programmes in which participating scientists and their research students/fellows operate as a Community of Practice; (iii) a South-South-North Smart Partnership scientists and institutions that share the Mission of SACIDS for harnessing innovations in science and technology in order to improve Africa’s capacity to detect, identify and monitor infectious diseases of humans, animals and their interactions in the African ecosystems in order to better manage the risk posed by them.
The SACIDS programmes in Tanzania and Zambia have now led to two World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence for Infectious Diseases of Humans and Animals in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The research programme of SACIDS that he directs is in four strands: (i) emerging and vector-borne viral diseases; (ii) viral epidemic diseases that constrain food security; (iii) bacterial diseases with a focus on antimicrobial resistance and on Mycobacterial infections; (iv) cross-cutting One Health sciences with a focus on disease surveillance systems, epidemiological risk modeling, social and economic determinants of human and animal health.
He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Pathology and Infectious Diseases of the RVC, London and Visiting Professor of Transboundary and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania. Formerly, he was Head of the Infectious Diseases Programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations at its Headquarters in Rome. From 1994 to his retirement from FAO in 2002, he was the inaugural Head of the FAO special programme on infectious diseases, known as the Emergency Prevention System for Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES) which included the coordination of the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP). Before moving to FAO Headquarters, he had set up the Pan African Veterinary Vaccine Centre in Addis Ababa, on behalf of FAO and the Organisation of African Unity (now African Union).
He has worked in both governmental and industrial settings. In government: as Virologist and Chief Veterinary Research Officer for the Tanzanian Government and as Head of the Virus Diseases at the then East African Veterinary Research Organisation, Muguga, Kenya. In industry he has been the Director of Veterinary Vaccine Research for Pfizer International, the Head of FMD Vaccine Research for the Wellcome Foundation and the Technical Director for the AVIS College. His area of interest is on the major infectious diseases of animals, known as transboundary animal diseases.