Special Issue: Emerging Wildlife Viral Diseases

Journal Contribution ResearchOnline@JCU
Sarker, Subir
Abstract

[Extract] The past several decades have seen the emergences of novel viral infectious diseases increase steadily in wildlife populations globally [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Emerging viral diseases are acknowledged as an apparently growing trend of threats to wildlife and act as the source of a series of high-impact diseases recently emerging as pathogens affecting humans [9]. Most emerging viral pathogens, including Ebola and Marburg virus, human immunodeficiency virus virus-1 and -2, Nipah, Sin Nombre virus, Hendra and Menangle virus, West Nile virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and different subtypes of avian influenza, originate in wildlife and spill over into human hosts due to a range of ecological, demographic, and socio-economic changes [10]. Diseases caused by viruses, recently exemplified by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) to human populations, also threaten wild animals from amphibians to mammals [8]. Habitat destructions, pollution, and international trade are among the factors contributing to a growing opportunity for viruses to spread to new hosts and cause disease. Three independent studies deal with the emergency of novel viruses such as the protoparvovirus [11], a number of mongoose-associated circoviruses and cycloviruses [12], and a poxvirus, cheloniid poxvirus 1 (ChePV-1) [1]. Using various deployed approaches, the detected novel Newlavirus, a protoparvovirus of foxes in Newfoundland and Labrador, was shown to be 38.7–54.1% identical to the members of the genus Protoparvovirus, compared to NS1 proteins [11]. Although some aspects of novel protoparvovirus ecology were examined, future studies will require the assessment of the host specificity and its geographical distribution. In a study on Circoviridae [12], 76 of 83 of apparently healthy small Indian mongooses were investigated using PCR and determined complete genomes of three mongoose-associated circoviruses and six cycloviruses. Although the detected circoviruses in this study show a strong phylogenetic congruence with other animal and human origin circoviruses, it is unknown whether the detected circoviruses/cycloviruses have the ability to replicate in the mongoose host or are derived from dietary origin during prey–predator interaction [12].

Journal

Viruses

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Volume

14

ISBN/ISSN

1999-4915

Edition

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Issue

4

Pages Count

3

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Publisher

MDPI

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Url

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Date

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EISSN

N/A

DOI

10.3390/v14040807