[Animals] They detect 100 cases of contagion from humans to animals: what are the risks, according to science

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The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has generated increased concern about the transmission of pathogens from humans to animals and their potential to threaten conservation and public health. To assess this threat, a group of scientists from Colorado State University conducted research just published in Ecology Letters describing nearly a hundred different cases in which diseases have reverted from humans to wildlife, as well as that SARS-CoV-2 has been able to spread in mink farms, zoo lions and tigers, and wild white-tailed deer.

Specialists reviewed published evidence documents of human-to-wildlife transmission events, focusing on how such events could threaten animal and human health. They identified 97 verified examples, involving a wide range of pathogens; however, the reported hosts were mostly non-human primates or large, long-lived captive animals. Relatively few documented examples resulted in morbidity and mortality, and very few led to maintenance of a human pathogen in a new reservoir or subsequent “secondary spillover” back to humans.

COVID-19 originally passed from other animals to people, but the diseases have also spread the other way, and such "spill-over" events are described in those nearly 100 studies that specialists managed to collect and verify. "Documented reports of people transmitting disease to other animals are probably just the tip of the iceberg," explains Anna Fagre, of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology at Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. first author of the research.
COVID-19 originally passed from other animals to people, but the diseases have also spread in the opposite direction, and such “spill” events are described in those almost 100 studies that specialists managed to collect and verify EFE/EPA/Daniel Irungu /Archive
COVID-19 originally passed from other animals to people, but the diseases have also spread in the opposite direction, and such “spill” events are described in those almost 100 studies that specialists managed to collect and verify EFE/EPA/Daniel Irungu /Archive

Fagre's team searched previously published research for all articles describing disease transmission from humans to animals that did not involve the new coronavirus. The group identified and evaluated those 97 reports involving bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. Of these cases, 57 involved transmission to primates, likely because it is easier for pathogens to jump between humans and more closely related species.

Many of the transmission events involved zoo animals, for example a cheetah that contracted a human strain of influenza. But they also involved wild animals, such as mountain gorillas in Uganda who contracted various bacterial infections that cause diarrhoea.

There were no confirmed cases of a disease interbreeding with an animal species and continuing to spread between individuals. But several wild skunks have been found to be infected with human influenza, suggesting that there may be ongoing transmission. And the virus that causes COVID-19 is now spreading widely among white-tailed deer in North America.
Several wild skunks have been found to be infected with human influenza, suggesting there may be ongoing transmission EFE/Attila Kovacs/File
Several wild skunks have been found to be infected with human influenza, suggesting there may be ongoing transmission EFE/Attila Kovacs/File

There is a possibility that these diseases could harm affected animals, but there is also a danger that the human pathogen will mutate while in another host and become more dangerous to people, if it crosses back to humans. "I think there is much more transmission than we are currently capturing," says Fagre. When we're not doing robust sampling, there are a lot of pathways we could be missing."

The original host of COVID-19 appears to have been bats, "although there may have been an intermediate stage in pangolins before it reached us," Fagre continues. From humans, the coronavirus appears to have spread to pets such as cats and also farmed mink, leading to a mass slaughter in Denmark in 2020, due to fears that the virus in mink could mutate into a more dangerous variant. . Some data suggests that white-tailed deer have returned the virus to humans in at least one case, and many scientists have raised broader concerns that the new re

 

 

https://www.infobae.com/america/ciencia-america/2022/03/25/detectan-100-casos-de-contagio-de-humanos-a-animales-cuales-son-los-riesgos-segun-la-ciencia/