Viral zoonotic risk is homogenous among taxonomic orders of mammalian and avian reservoir hosts.

ABSTRACT: The notion that certain animal groups disproportionately maintain and transmit viruses to humans due to broad-scale differences in ecology, life history, and physiology currently influences global health surveillance and research in disease ecology, virology, and immunology. To directly test whether such "special reservoirs" of zoonoses exist, we used literature searches to construct the largest existing dataset of virus-reservoir relationships, consisting of the avian and mammalian reservoir hosts of 415 RNA and DNA viruses along with their histories of human infection. Reservoir host effects on the propensity of viruses to have been reported as infecting humans were rare and when present were restricted to one or two viral families. The data instead support a largely host-neutral explana

SUBMITTER: Mollentze N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7196766 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature