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Results for “Zoonoses and Public Health”

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5 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2018

Prepublication communication of research results

Publishing of scientific findings is central to the scientific process, and it is traditional to consider findings “provisional” until accepted by a peer-reviewed journal. Until publication, communication of provisional findings beyond participants in the study is typically limited. This practice helps assure scientific integrity. However, a dilemma arises when a provisional finding has urgent societal consequences that may be exacerbated by delay. This dilemma may be particularly pronounced when a discovery concerns wildlife health, which could have implications for conservation, public health (i.e., zoonoses), or domestic animal health (e.g., avian influenza). A scientist may see a need for prepublication communication but consider such communication to be problematic. We suggest that common concerns about directed prepublication communication are generally misplaced. Our perspective comes from natural resources science and management, but we suspect that this situation could arise in any branch of science and that discussing these issues will help scientists who may not routinely work with public officials navigate an unfamiliar situation.

EcoHealth↗
USGS2012

Ecology of zoonotic infectious diseases in bats: current knowledge and future directions

Bats are hosts to a range of zoonotic and potentially zoonotic pathogens. Human activities that increase exposure to bats will likely increase the opportunity for infections to spill over in the future. Ecological drivers of pathogen spillover and emergence in novel hosts, including humans, involve a complex mixture of processes, and understanding these complexities may aid in predicting spillover. In particular, only once the pathogen and host ecologies are known can the impacts of anthropogenic changes be fully appreciated. Cross-disciplinary approaches are required to understand how host and pathogen ecology interact. Bats differ from other sylvatic disease reservoirs because of their unique and diverse lifestyles, including their ability to fly, often highly gregarious social structures, long lifespans and low fecundity rates. We highlight how these traits may affect infection dynamics and how both host and pathogen traits may interact to affect infection dynamics. We identify key questions relating to the ecology of infectious diseases in bats and propose that a combination of field and laboratory studies are needed to create data-driven mechanistic models to elucidate those aspects of bat ecology that are most critical to the dynamics of emerging bat viruses. If commonalities can be found, then predicting the dynamics of newly emerging diseases may be possible. This modelling approach will be particularly important in scenarios when population surveillance data are unavailable and when it is unclear which aspects of host ecology are driving infection dynamics.

Zoonoses and Public Health↗
USGS2021

Sin Nombre virus prevalence from 2014–2017 in wild deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus, on five of the California Channel Islands

Sin Nombre virus (SNV) is a zoonotic virus that is highly pathogenic to humans. The deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus , is the primary host of SNV, and SNV prevalence in P . maniculatus is an important indicator of human disease risk. Because the California Channel Islands contain permanent human settlements, receive hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, and can have extremely high densities of P . maniculatus , surveillance for SNV in island P . maniculatus is important for understanding the human risk of zoonotic disease. Despite the importance of surveillance on these heavily utilized islands, SNV prevalence (i.e. the proportion of P . maniculatus that test positive to antibodies to SNV) has not been examined in the last 13–27 years. We present data on 1,610 mice sampled for four consecutive years (2014–2017) on five of the California Channel Islands: East Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, San Nicolas, and San Clemente. Despite historical data indicating SNV-positive mice on San Clemente and Santa Catalina, we detected no SNV-positive mice on these islands, suggesting very low prevalence or possible loss of SNV. Islands historically free of SNV (East Anacapa, Santa Barbara, and San Nicolas) remained free of SNV, suggesting that rates of pathogen introduction from other islands and/or the mainland are low. Although continued surveillance is warranted to determine whether SNV establishes on these islands, our work helps inform current human disease risk in these locations and suggests that SNV prevalence on these islands is currently very low.

California↗
USGS2024

One Health best practice case study: Advancing national One Health coordination in the United States through the One Health zoonotic disease prioritization process

The U.S. government advances One Health coordination through the best practices of jointly developing shared priorities and utilizing formalized coordination platforms to connect partners from public health, agriculture, wildlife, environment, and other sectors at the national, subnational (e.g. state, tribal, local, and territorial), and non-governmental levels (e.g. academia, industry, non-governmental organizations, and the public) levels. Coordinated efforts were strengthened through the U.S. One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization (OHZDP) workshop in 2017, which led to the prioritization of eight zoonotic diseases and development of next steps and action plans for One Health collaboration across federal agencies (Prioritizing Zoonotic Diseases for Multisectoral, One Health Collaboration in the United States, 2017). This One Health best practice was used to prioritize the top endemic and emerging zoonoses of greatest concern for the United States, identify gaps, and define plans for U.S. government One Health collaboration to address the priority zoonotic diseases. Multiple actions that strengthened One Health coordination were enacted, including establishing the One Health Federal Interagency COVID-19 Coordination (OH-FICC) group. To further advance One Health in the United States, Congress mandated that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture collaborate to develop the National One Health Framework to Address Zoonotic Diseases and Advance Public Health Preparedness in the United States as well as formalize a One Health, multisectoral coordination mechanism, the United States One Health Coordination Unit at the federal level (Appropriations Committee Report, 2021; Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023). Enhancing national level One Health coordination in the United States has also helped advance collaboration with subnational and non-governmental levels to address timely One Health issues.

One Health Cases↗
USGS2021

Implications of zoonoses from hunting and use of wildlife in North American arctic and boreal biomes: Pandemic potential, monitoring, and mitigation

The COVID-19 pandemic has re-focused attention on mechanisms that lead to zoonotic disease spillover and spread. Commercial wildlife trade, and associated markets, are recognized mechanisms for zoonotic disease emergence, resulting in a growing global conversation around reducing human disease risks from spillover associated with hunting, trade, and consumption of wild animals. These discussions are especially relevant to people who rely on harvesting wildlife to meet nutritional, and cultural needs, including those in Arctic and boreal regions. Global policies around wildlife use and trade can impact food sovereignty and security, especially of Indigenous Peoples. We reviewed known zoonotic pathogens and current risks of transmission from wildlife (including fish) to humans in North American Arctic and boreal biomes, and evaluated the epidemic and pandemic potential of these zoonoses. We discuss future concerns, and consider monitoring and mitigation measures in these changing socio-ecological systems. While multiple zoonotic pathogens circulate in these systems, risks to humans are mostly limited to individual illness or local community outbreaks. These regions are relatively remote, subject to very cold temperatures, have relatively low wildlife, domestic animal, and pathogen diversity, and in many cases low density, including of humans. Hence, favorable conditions for emergence of novel diseases or major amplification of a spillover event are currently not present. The greatest risk to northern communities from pathogens of pandemic potential is via introduction with humans visiting from other areas. However, Arctic and boreal ecosystems are undergoing rapid changes through climate warming, habitat encroachment, and development; all of which can change host and pathogen relationships, thereby affecting the probability of the emergence of new (and re-emergence of old) zoonoses. Indigenous leadership and engagement in disease monitoring, prevention and response, is vital from the outset, and would increase the success of such efforts, as well as ensure the protection of Indigenous rights as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Partnering with northern communities and including Indigenous Knowledge Systems would improve the timeliness, and likelihood, of detecting emerging zoonotic risks, and contextualize risk assessments to the unique human-wildlife relationships present in northern biomes.

Frontiers in Public Health↗