Comprehensive knowledge of reservoir hosts is Key to mitigate Future pandemics
Autor
Zhu, Pingfen
Garber, Paul A.
Wang, Ling
Li, Meng
Belov, Katherine
Gillespie, Thomas R.
Zhou, Xuming
Institución
Resumen
COVID-19 and other epidemics (such as SARS, Ebola and H1N1) are stark reminders
that knowledge of animal behavior and ecosystem health are key to controlling the
spread of zoonotic diseases early in their onset. However, we have very limited
information about the set of behavioral and ecological factors that promote viral
spillover and the effects that has on ecosystem health and disease transmission. Thus,
expanding our current knowledge of reservoir hosts and pandemics, represents an
urgent and critical tool in ecological epidemiology. We also propose to create an
integrative database that ranks animal species in terms of their likelihood as a host
for specific infectious diseases. We call for a global and cooperative effort of field and
laboratory scientists to create, maintain, and update this information in order to
reduce the severity of future pandemics.