Predicting the potential for zoonotic transmission and host associations for novel viruses

Abstract

Host-virus associations have co-evolved under ecological and evolutionary selection pressures that shape cross-species transmission and spillover to humans. Observed virus-host associations provide relevant context for newly discovered wildlife viruses to assess knowledge gaps in host-range and estimate pathways for potential human infection. Using models to predict virus-host networks, we predicted the likelihood of humans as hosts for 513 newly discovered viruses detected by large-scale wildlife surveillance at high-risk animal-human interfaces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Predictions indicated that novel coronaviruses are likely to infect a greater number of host species than viruses from other families. Our models further characterize novel viruses through prioritization scores and directly inform surveillance targets to identify host ranges for newly discovered viruses.

Host–Pathogen Interactions Influencing Zoonotic Spillover Potential and Transmission in Humans

“…Further detailed studies into the molecular, cellular and tissular pathogenesis mechanisms of human viral diseases and also of animal viral diseases with spillover potential are necessary to provide new clues to identify critical points that will be useful in assessing the transmissibility of future outbreaks of known or emerging/re-emerging pathogens. A number of studies have focused on estimating the number of viruses with zoonotic potential circulating in wild animal species [ 22 , 267 ] and even on developing or improving existing prediction models [ 3 , 268 , 269 ], but often, larger scale functional studies determining common correlates of zoonotic potential for putative emerging viruses for viral glycoproteins or innate immunity antagonism proteins, for example, are lacking.…”

“…Approximately 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonoses [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Over the last half-century, the incidence and diversity of many viral zoonotic infectious diseases appear to have increased, on occasion leading to notable epidemics or even pandemics with important consequences for health, travel and economies.…”

Structure determination needs to go viral

“…Despite these figures being estimates, data modeling and extrapolation propose from 513 novel viruses to 827,000 viruses as potentially human-infecting, from a universe of 1.67 million unknown viruses (Chatterjee et al 2021 ). At least two thirds of these are of zoonotic origin, reinforcing the chance of transmission from farm or wild animals to humans (Pandit et al 2022 ). In addition to that, half the viruses that can infect humans are also transmissible among humans, and half of those are able to generate more than one secondary case after infection (i.e.…”

MERS-Coronavirus across Kenya: a spatial examination of social and environmental drivers

“…In East Africa, changes in climate (i.e., hotter and drier trends) and agricultural land-use change have increased the likelihood of infectious disease emergence and transmission, such as Ebola virus, Flaviviruses, Usutu viruses, Chikungunya and O’nyong-nyong viruses, Bunyaviruses, and Rift Valley Fever and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic viruses (Duygu et al, 2018; Fanelli & Buonavoglia, 2021; Fenollar & Mediannikov, 2018; Muturi et al, 2023; Pandit et al, 2022). Further, a combination of climate, agricultural and economic changes are supporting the spread of emerging pathogens from East Africa into the Middle East and Europe (Ryan et al, 2019; Xiao et al, 2015).…”