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. 2015 Oct 7:5:14830.
doi: 10.1038/srep14830.

Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity

Christine Kreuder Johnson  1 , Peta L Hitchens  1 , Tierra Smiley Evans  1 , Tracey Goldstein  1 , Kate Thomas  1 , Andrew Clements  2 , Damien O Joly  3 , Nathan D Wolfe  3 , Peter Daszak  4 , William B Karesh  4 , Jonna K Mazet  1
Affiliations

Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity

Christine Kreuder Johnson et al. Sci Rep. .

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 transmission and have broader geographic spread. Viruses transmitted to humans during practices that facilitate mixing of diverse animal species had significantly higher host plasticity. Our findings suggest that animal-to-human spillover of new viruses that are capable of infecting diverse host species signal emerging disease events with higher pandemic potential in that these viruses are more likely to amplify by human-to-human transmission with spread on a global scale.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses that spill over from animals to humans and spread by secondary transmission among humans.
Key characteristics of pandemic potential that were evaluated for associations with viral traits and high-risk disease transmission interfaces include host plasticity, human-to-human transmissibility, and geographic distribution. Human practices that promote transmission of mutation-prone RNA viruses able to infect a wide range of taxonomically diverse hosts, including wild and domestic animals, act synergistically to facilitate viral emergence, particularly for viruses capable of human-to-human transmission and broad geographic spread (map and illustration created using Adobe Illustrator CS6).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Host unipartite network map showing high host plasticity among zoonotic viruses with wild and domestic animal hosts connected by shared viruses.
High connectivity between hosts by more shared viruses is evident for domestic animal hosts (green) and wild animal hosts (purple) that are most centrally located. Host node size is proportionate to the number of connections each host has to another host based on shared viruses. The width of each edge connecting hosts is relative to the number of viruses shared by the connection between hosts.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Epidemiologic bipartite network map showing high-risk disease transmission interfaces shared by zoonotic viruses transmitted from wildlife to humans.
High-risk interfaces are shown with node size proportionate to the number of viruses reported for each transmission interface, categorized according to (1) direct contact with wildlife (dark blue), (2) indirect contact with wildlife (light blue), and (3) transmission by vector (yellow). Virus node size (red, n = 86 viruses) reflects the number of connections to different transmission interfaces and ecological plasticity of viruses through use of multiple transmission opportunities. Highly connected and more central interfaces facilitated transmission of more viruses, providing an epidemiologic picture of circumstances likely to promote future disease emergence, and important targets for disease surveillance and preventive measures.
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