Abstract
Many serious emerging zoonotic infections have recently arisen from bats, including Ebola, Marburg, SARS-coronavirus, Hendra, Nipah, and a number of rabies and rabies-related viruses, consistent with the overall observation that wildlife are an important source of emerging zoonoses for the human population. Mechanisms underlying the recognized association between ecosystem health and human health remain poorly understood and responding appropriately to the ecological, social and economic conditions that facilitate disease emergence and transmission represents a substantial societal challenge. In the context of disease emergence from wildlife, wildlife and habitat should be conserved, which in turn will preserve vital ecosystem structure and function, which has broader implications for human wellbeing and environmental sustainability, while simultaneously minimizing the spillover of pathogens from wild animals into human beings. In this review, we propose a novel framework for the holistic and interdisciplinary investigation of zoonotic disease emergence and its drivers, using the spillover of bat pathogens as a case study. This study has been developed to gain a detailed interdisciplinary understanding, and it combines cutting-edge perspectives from both natural and social sciences, linked to policy impacts on public health, land use and conservation.
Highlights
There is a growing awareness of the increasing threats presented to humans by emerging infectious diseasesOne contribution of 10 to a Theme Issue ‘Disease invasion: impacts on biodiversity and human health’.(EIDs) [1 – 3], with the majority of human EIDs being zoonotic—originating especially from wildlife reservoirs [4]
We propose that pathogen spillover occurs from bats to humans and affects public health, but the dynamics, effects and extent to which spillover is recognized, and responded to, depend on varied combinations of biological, environmental, social and politico-economic processes and drivers
We describe a framework for the holistic study and management of the emergence of disease from wildlife, focusing on Old World fruit bats as a model
Summary
One contribution of 10 to a Theme Issue ‘Disease invasion: impacts on biodiversity and human health’. Needed for the full, long-term addressing of the risks of bat (and other wildlife) derived zoonoses is an approach that gains detailed interdisciplinary understanding, combining cutting-edge perspectives from both natural and social sciences, linked to policy impacts on public health, land use and conservation. Social science and science–policy perspectives are important to consider how these diseases may be diagnosed, or continue undetected in humans, how policies and responses are framed and the political–economic interests that might influence this This combination of disciplines needs to be carefully integrated in a manner that has not really been achieved for the study of any disease, let alone a wildlife-associated zoonosis. There is a clear need to integrate interdisciplinary research and policy, and to work across wildlife, veterinary and public health sectors, to develop approaches and interventions geared to enabling people and bats to coexist with a reduced disease risk to humans and livestock. A proposed framework for how such an integrated research – policy approach might be developed is laid out
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