Wild animals carry a variety of pathogens, and can serve as natural reservoirs of pathogens, as they live in complex environments. Wildlife diseases not only pose a serious threat to animal health, especially rare and endangered wild animals, but also cause important zoonoses that threaten public health, such as AIDS, Ebola, avian influenza and others. It has been reported that 60.3% of emerging human infectious diseases are animal-borne, of which 71.8% originated from wildlife. In addition, due to the habits of wildlife migration, wild animals and birds are important disease spreaders, as they are able to transmit many zoonotic diseases across regions, country borders, intercontinental and globally. Meanwhile, many mosquitoes and ticks carried by wildlife are also important vectors of diseases (vector-borne diseases), facilitating disease spread and causing huge economic losses to poultry and livestock, and bringing major public health problems to human beings.
Spillover of pathogens from wildlife to domestic animals or to humans, can lead to rapid evolution of the pathogen. Under the immune stress in new hosts, pathogens can evolve and acquire new biological properties which may pose serious threat to the health of domestic animals and humans. Pathogens carried by wild animals and birds are not only transmitted across proximal hosts, but can also spread over wide ranges geographically via wildlife migration. Understanding the risks of wildlife-borne zoonotic diseases is necessary to increase awareness and facilitate the application of preventive and control measures to reduce disease spread.
This Research Topic will focus on wildlife-borne and vector-borne infectious diseases, including viral diseases, bacterial diseases, parasitic diseases and other zoonotic diseases. This Research Topic will accept several types of articles, including Original Research, Review, Perspective, and Mini Review. The collection welcomes, but is not limited to, papers addressing the following themes:
• Emerging and re-emerging wildlife pathogens
• Vector-borne diseases
• Migration of wildlife and dispersal of disease
• Epidemiological and genetic evolution
• Pathogenic and transmission research
• Pathogenesis and virus-host interactions
• Host immune response
• Risk assessments
• Drug development, prevention and control strategies
Wild animals carry a variety of pathogens, and can serve as natural reservoirs of pathogens, as they live in complex environments. Wildlife diseases not only pose a serious threat to animal health, especially rare and endangered wild animals, but also cause important zoonoses that threaten public health, such as AIDS, Ebola, avian influenza and others. It has been reported that 60.3% of emerging human infectious diseases are animal-borne, of which 71.8% originated from wildlife. In addition, due to the habits of wildlife migration, wild animals and birds are important disease spreaders, as they are able to transmit many zoonotic diseases across regions, country borders, intercontinental and globally. Meanwhile, many mosquitoes and ticks carried by wildlife are also important vectors of diseases (vector-borne diseases), facilitating disease spread and causing huge economic losses to poultry and livestock, and bringing major public health problems to human beings.
Spillover of pathogens from wildlife to domestic animals or to humans, can lead to rapid evolution of the pathogen. Under the immune stress in new hosts, pathogens can evolve and acquire new biological properties which may pose serious threat to the health of domestic animals and humans. Pathogens carried by wild animals and birds are not only transmitted across proximal hosts, but can also spread over wide ranges geographically via wildlife migration. Understanding the risks of wildlife-borne zoonotic diseases is necessary to increase awareness and facilitate the application of preventive and control measures to reduce disease spread.
This Research Topic will focus on wildlife-borne and vector-borne infectious diseases, including viral diseases, bacterial diseases, parasitic diseases and other zoonotic diseases. This Research Topic will accept several types of articles, including Original Research, Review, Perspective, and Mini Review. The collection welcomes, but is not limited to, papers addressing the following themes:
• Emerging and re-emerging wildlife pathogens
• Vector-borne diseases
• Migration of wildlife and dispersal of disease
• Epidemiological and genetic evolution
• Pathogenic and transmission research
• Pathogenesis and virus-host interactions
• Host immune response
• Risk assessments
• Drug development, prevention and control strategies
