Researchers use AI to explore potential zoonotic diseases

Phys.org  April 26, 2023 When certain conditions are met, the passage of viruses from one species to another can ultimately lead to the emergence of a zoonosis. To make better predictions of interactions between mammals and viruses in general, an international team of researchers (Canada, UK, USA – University of Oklahoma, Georgetown University, Washington University) developed an algorithm to sample thousands of species of mammals and even more thousands of viruses to identify which host-virus interactions to explore further. The algorithm represents the system as a network of interactions between viruses and mammals that the algorithm must then complete. It […]

What You Learned About Zoonotic Disease Spillover Risk During COVID-19

SciTech Daily  September 17, 2022 According to an international team of researchers (Japan, USA – Santa Clara University, University of Colorado, UK) media messaging throughout the pandemic consistently described direct causality between zoonotic disease spread and land use change. This was even though only 53% of the surveyed peer-reviewed literature made this association. The complexity of pathogen responses to land change cannot be reduced to one-size-fits-all proclamations. They discovered that as the literature moves from primary research to review articles and commentaries, and finally to webpages, the “overstating of the evidence” continually increases. In fact, 78% of secondary papers imply […]

Want to prevent pandemics? Stop spillovers

Nature 605, 419-422 (2022) According to a team of medical professionals and practitioners in the US spillover events, in which a pathogen that originates in animals jumps into people, have probably triggered every viral pandemic that’s occurred since the start of the twentieth century. An August 2021 analysis of disease outbreaks over the past four centuries indicates that the yearly probability of pandemics could increase several-fold in the coming decades, largely because of human-induced environmental changes. Fortunately, for around US$20 billion per year, the likelihood of spillover could be greatly reduced. This is the amount needed to halve global deforestation […]

China detects first human case of H3N8 bird flu

MedXpress  April 27, 2022 H3N8 is known to have been circulating since 2002 after first emerging in North American waterfowl. It is known to infect horses, dogs, and seals, but has not previously been detected in humans. China’s National Health Commission on Tuesday said a four-year-old boy living in central Henan province tested positive for the strain after being hospitalized earlier this month with a fever and other symptoms. The boy was infected directly by birds and the strain was not found to have “the ability to effectively infect humans”, the commission said. The H5N1 and H7N9 strains of bird […]

Where will the next pandemic begin? The Amazon rainforest offers troubling clues

Phys.org  November 22, 2021 According to the scientists the next pandemic is likely to emerge from a community as people demolish forest, they not only accelerate global warming but also dramatically increase their risk of exposure to disease. Lurking in mammals and birds are about 1.6 million viruses, some of which will be deadly when they leap to humans. Scientists say that disease hot zones are multiplying from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already triggered a rise in infectious disease. Zoologists have traced about a third of all known outbreaks around the world to rapid land use […]

Mapping zoonotic ‘hot spots’ where risk of coronaviruses jumping from bats to humans is highest

Phys.org  June 1, 2021 The extent to which humans facilitate zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases is unclear. Human encroachment into wildlife habitats, cropland area and intensive animal farming is hypothesized to favour the emergence of zoonotic diseases. An international team of researchers (Italy, USA – UC Berkeley, New Zealand) analysed comprehensive, high-resolution datasets on forest cover, cropland distribution, livestock density, human population, human settlements, bat species’ distribution and land-use changes in regions populated by Asian horseshoe bats (>28.5 million km2)—the species that most commonly carry severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-related coronaviruses. They identified areas at risk of SARS-related coronavirus outbreaks, showing that […]