The virus that causes COVID-19 probably originated in wild bats that live in caves around Wuhan, China, and may have been passed to a second animal species before infecting people, according to the World Health Organization.
Many of the most devastating epidemics in recent decades, including Ebola, avian influenza and HIV/AIDS, have been triggered by animal viruses affecting humans.
Despite the ever-present danger of a new virus emerging and triggering a global pandemic, there is no global formula for detecting viruses in wild animals that can pass on to humans.
In an attitude article published on July 9 in Science, a diverse organization of infectious disease experts, environmentalists, wildlife biologists and other experts argue that a decentralized formula of global wildlife surveillance can simply – and – be established to identify viruses in wild animals that have the potential to infect and improve health before any other pandemic begins.
“It is very unlikely that you will know how animal viruses are spreading in the human population, yet coronaviruses alone have caused epidemics in humans 3 times in the last 20 years.” co-author Jennifer A. Philips, MD, PhD said, referring to sarS, MERS and COVID-19 outbreaks.
Even ten years ago, it would have been difficult to conduct global surveillance on the human-fauna interface. But because of technological advances, it is now feasible and affordable, and it has never been more apparent how much is needed. “
Each animal has its own set of viruses, with some overlap between species. Often, an animal species and its viruses have lived in combination for so long that they have adapted to others, and the viruses do not cause symptoms or only a mild to moderate disease.
But when different animal species that don’t normally have much contact are brought together, viruses have the opportunity to jump from one species to another.
Most viruses do not have the genetic equipment to infect species. But viruses with such equipment can be fatal to a newly inflamed species without herbal immunity.
Human activity is making such spillover events more and more likely. As the population of the world continues to grow, the demand for natural resources skyrockets.
People are entering wild spaces to accommodate new homes and businesses, and resources to fuel their economies and lifestyles.
Wild animals are caught and sold for consumption, or as exotic pets in wildlife markets, where species are combined in overcrowded conditions and unsanitary conditions.
Portions of wild animals are shipped worldwide in the form of trinkets or ingredients for classic or preferred medicines.
However, there is no strange formula in a position to stumble upon pathogenic viruses related to movement or products.
“In the attitude of this article, I spoke to friends and colleagues around the world who are studying in Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador and asked them, “Where do you get your samples for detection?” Gideon Erkenswick, PhD, associate of postdoctoral studies at the Philips laboratory.
Erkenswick is also Director of Field Projects International, a non-profit organization committed to the conservation and conservation of tropical ecosystems.
“In almost every single situation, the answer ‘nowhere’. At the local level, no one has the time and resources to devote to this work. To locate new pathogenic viruses, we need to locate foreign volunteer collaborators and then get samples from the country, which is complicated and expensive.”
Philips, Erkenswick and their colleagues in the Wildlife Disease Surveillance Approach Group, in the clinical article, recommend the creation of a global tracking network to detect wildlife and its products at critical points such as wildlife markets.
The concept would be for local groups of researchers and technicians to extract viral genomes from animal samples, temporarily display them at the site, and upload the series to a central database in the cloud.
The load and length of the required clinical apparatus has decreased in recent years, causing this test to be performed even in resource-constrained environments where the maximum of these hotspots are found.
“Now there’s a genetic sequencer that literally has the length of a USB stick,” Erkenswick said. “You can take this and other materials into a rainforest and analyze a pattern for disease-causing virus-related sequences on the site in a matter of hours.”
“I mean, if you’re making a chance about something like the virus that causes COVID-19, do you need to collect it, buy it, send it, threaten greater exposure, pattern degradation, and load months or years of delay, before do you feel what you’re doing?
“There are other people who have the experience and skills to make these kinds of paintings safely around the world, they just don’t have the tools.”
Once viral sequences are downloaded, researchers around the world can also analyze them to identify animal viruses that may pose a risk to humans and expand a greater understanding of the global virus that expands in other environments.
By comparing genomic series data, researchers can identify which circle of relatives belongs to an unknown virus and how connected it is to any pathogenic virus.
They can also determine whether a virus carries genes related to the ability to cause disease in humans.
“By knowing the diversity and following its evolution, we can make sure to move forward with what is discovered in populations and in the human interface,” Philips said.
“In the past, before fashionable transport, the occasions of contagion would have been local and spread slowly, giving other people time to react.”
“But now the global is so small that a one-place occasion puts the overall total at risk. That’s not the problem with others. That’s everybody’s problem.”
University of Washington School of Medicine
Watsa, M. (2020) Discussion Group on Wildlife Disease Surveillance et al. (2020) Strict disease surveillance. Sciences. doi.org/10.1126/science.abc0017.
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