中文导读
目前，大多数人类流行传染病来源于哺乳动物，但人们仍对其病原体传播途径的全球模式知之甚少。美国非盈利组织环保生态健康联盟率先进行哺乳动物病毒的全面研究，描绘了全球哺乳动物传染病的高发区。该研究旨在甄别容易出现病源的区域，以及携带病
毒的物种，以便更好地预测并避免大规模病毒的再次爆发。
A prediction of the places from which new illnesses are likely to emerge
MOST new human viral infections come from other animals. Ebola fever, SARS and AIDS all started in this way. Animals are also the sources of influenza epidemics. Keeping an eye on birds and beasts, the viruses they carry, and which of those viruses are found in people is thus a prudent thing to do. And that is the self-appointed task of the EcoHealth Alliance, a charitable research organisation based in New York. This week some of the alliance’s scientists, led by Kevin Olival, published the results of their latest research in
Nature
. Among other things, they attempt to estimate what people do not know about these “zoonotic” viruses, as well as what they do.
Dr Olival’s study is restricted to mammals. It does not, therefore, pertain to things like the sources of avian flu. But within that limit it is as comprehensive as the data allow. It looks at all 586 species of virus known to have been found in at least one mammal. Those mammals amount to 754 species (humans included) from 15 orders—groups such as primates, bats, carnivores and even-toed ungulates (deer, cattle, sheep, antelopes, camels and so on). Of the viruses studied, 263 (ie, 45%) had been detected in humans and 188 of those were zoonotic in the sense that they had also been found at least once in another mammal species. This does not prove a virus passed from animal to human. It could have travelled the other way. But it is a starting-point for research.
