Journal article
Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity
C Kreuder Johnson, PL Hitchens, T Smiley Evans, T Goldstein, K Thomas, A Clements, DO Joly, ND Wolfe, P Daszak, WB Karesh, JK Mazet
Scientific Reports | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1038/srep14830
Abstract
Most human infectious diseases, especially recently emerging pathogens, originate from animals, and ongoing disease transmission from animals to people presents a significant global health burden. Recognition of the epidemiologic circumstances involved in zoonotic spillover, amplification, and spread of diseases is essential for prioritizing surveillance and predicting future disease emergence risk. We examine the animal hosts and transmission mechanisms involved in spillover of zoonotic viruses to date, and discover that viruses with high host plasticity (i.e. taxonomically and ecologically diverse host range) were more likely to amplify viral spillover by secondary human-to-human transmiss..
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Awarded by United States Agency for International Development
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program (Cooperative Agreement no. GHN-AOO-09-00010-00). We would like to thank D. Carroll and A. Pereira for insightful discussions on disease emergence dynamics, and M. Lubell for contributions to analyses. Thanks also to B.D. Shetty, and T. Kelly for contributing to data collection, and S. Oerding for graphical illustration. The contents of this paper are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.