Abstract
Despite many recent efforts to predict and control emerging infectious disease threats to humans, we failed to anticipate the zoonotic viruses which led to pandemics in 2009 and 2020. The morbidity, mortality, and economic costs of these pandemics have been staggering. We desperately need a more targeted, cost-efficient, and sustainable strategy to detect and mitigate future zoonotic respiratory virus threats. Evidence suggests that the transition from an animal virus to a human pathogen is incremental and requires a considerable number of spillover events and considerable time before a pandemic variant emerges. This evolutionary view argues for the refocusing of public health resources on novel respiratory virus surveillance at human–animal interfaces in geographical hotspots for emerging infectious diseases. Where human–animal interface surveillance is not possible, a secondary high-yield, cost-efficient strategy is to conduct novel respiratory virus surveillance among pneumonia patients in these same hotspots. When novel pathogens are discovered, they must be quickly assessed for their human risk and, if indicated, mitigation strategies initiated. In this review, we discuss the most common respiratory virus threats, current efforts at early emerging pathogen detection, and propose and defend new molecular pathogen discovery strategies with the goal of preempting future pandemics.
Highlights
We seek to review the impact that respiratory viruses have had upon mankind, discuss current efforts regarding their control, and propose new strategies to detect emerging respiratory virus threats and mitigate them before they become widespread
While we recognize that both of these two rather polar appolar approaches have greatly helped in the response to respiratory virus epidemics and pandemics, we argue that a proaches have greatly helped in the response to respiratory virus epidemics and pandemics, we argue that a more efficient, more efficient,and cost-effective, sustainable approachsurveillance is conducting for novel respiratory threats in cost-effective, sustainableand approach is conducting forsurveillance novel respiratory virus threats invirus geographical geographical using a approach
We proposed an alternate One Health strategy for novel respiratory virus detection and argued that it is likely to be more efficient and more sustainable than current efforts, especially when integrated with research perspectives from ecology and evolution
Summary
We seek to review the impact that respiratory viruses have had upon mankind, discuss current efforts regarding their control, and propose new strategies to detect emerging respiratory virus threats and mitigate them before they become widespread. The H1N1pdm virus emerged in Mexico in 2009, and quickly spread throughout the world, causing an estimated 60.8 million illnesses and at least 12,469 deaths from 2009–2010 in the United States alone [6,24] This swine-like influenza virus, which continues to circulate today in both humans and pigs, served as a catalyst for more comprehensive influenza A virus surveillance strategies. Additional international outbreaks were identified in 2016 and 2018, as the virus was implicated as the cause of severe respiratory illness and acute flaccid myelitis, a polio-like illness This RNA virus is not thought to be zoonotic. The virus is thought have originated in bats and moved to man via pangolins, or possibly another, yet-unidentified, intermediate animal host This RNA virus belongs to the Coronaviridae family
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