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It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen

By definition, zoonotic pathogens are not strict host-species specialists in that they infect humans and at least one nonhuman reservoir species. The majority of zoonotic pathogens infect and are amplified by multiple vertebrate species in nature, each of which has a quantitatively different impact...

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Autores principales: Brisson, Dustin, Brinkley, Catherine, Humphrey, Parris T., Kemps, Brian D., Ostfeld, Richard S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228346/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22162687
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/741406
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author Brisson, Dustin
Brinkley, Catherine
Humphrey, Parris T.
Kemps, Brian D.
Ostfeld, Richard S.
author_facet Brisson, Dustin
Brinkley, Catherine
Humphrey, Parris T.
Kemps, Brian D.
Ostfeld, Richard S.
author_sort Brisson, Dustin
collection PubMed
description By definition, zoonotic pathogens are not strict host-species specialists in that they infect humans and at least one nonhuman reservoir species. The majority of zoonotic pathogens infect and are amplified by multiple vertebrate species in nature, each of which has a quantitatively different impact on the distribution and abundance of the pathogen and thus on disease risk. Unfortunately, when new zoonotic pathogens emerge, the dominant response by public health scientists is to search for a few, or even the single, most important reservoirs and to ignore other species that might strongly influence transmission. This focus on the single “primary” reservoir host species can delay biological understanding, and potentially public health interventions as species important in either amplifying or regulating the pathogen are overlooked. Investigating the evolutionary and ecological strategy of newly discovered or emerging pathogens within the community of potential and actual host species will be fruitful to both biological understanding and public health.
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spelling pubmed-32283462011-12-08 It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen Brisson, Dustin Brinkley, Catherine Humphrey, Parris T. Kemps, Brian D. Ostfeld, Richard S. Interdiscip Perspect Infect Dis Commentary By definition, zoonotic pathogens are not strict host-species specialists in that they infect humans and at least one nonhuman reservoir species. The majority of zoonotic pathogens infect and are amplified by multiple vertebrate species in nature, each of which has a quantitatively different impact on the distribution and abundance of the pathogen and thus on disease risk. Unfortunately, when new zoonotic pathogens emerge, the dominant response by public health scientists is to search for a few, or even the single, most important reservoirs and to ignore other species that might strongly influence transmission. This focus on the single “primary” reservoir host species can delay biological understanding, and potentially public health interventions as species important in either amplifying or regulating the pathogen are overlooked. Investigating the evolutionary and ecological strategy of newly discovered or emerging pathogens within the community of potential and actual host species will be fruitful to both biological understanding and public health. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2011 2011-11-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3228346/ /pubmed/22162687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/741406 Text en Copyright © 2011 Dustin Brisson et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Commentary
Brisson, Dustin
Brinkley, Catherine
Humphrey, Parris T.
Kemps, Brian D.
Ostfeld, Richard S.
It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen
title It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen
title_full It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen
title_fullStr It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen
title_full_unstemmed It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen
title_short It Takes a Community to Raise the Prevalence of a Zoonotic Pathogen
title_sort it takes a community to raise the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228346/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22162687
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/741406
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