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Editorial
. 2021 Dec;12(1):1288-1295.
doi: 10.1080/21505594.2021.1920741.

Mitigating the threat of emerging infectious diseases; a coevolutionary perspective

Cock Van Oosterhout  1
Affiliations
Editorial

Mitigating the threat of emerging infectious diseases; a coevolutionary perspective

Cock Van Oosterhout. Virulence. 2021 Dec.
No abstract available

Keywords: COVID status certification; COVID-19; Coevolution; Digital Green Certificate; EIDs; One Health; Red Queen hypothesis; SARS-CoV-2; gene flow; immunity-based license; mutation; pandemic; vaccination; zoonosis.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Coevolutionary disequilibrium between livestock, humans and pathogens. (a) Viruses have an extremely high mutation rate.[10], and (b) a high abundance[11]. In combination with their rapid rate of replication, these properties give viruses a high evolutionary potential. (c) The biomass of livestock is over an order of magnitude higher than that of all wildlife combined[11], yet their genetic effective size [30] is 80 times lower than the minimum viable population size of free-living species[31], which makes livestock vulnerable to infectious disease. (d) Habitat destruction, illegal wildlife trade and human activities have increased gene flow and brought many species into contact, which is facilitating spillover and hybridization of pathogens[16]. (e) The highly abundant and genetically depleted livestock act as “mixing vessels” where different pathogens can hybridize[7]. (f) Close contact between livestock and humans can lead to spillovers, which make zoonotic hybrid pathogens a significant threat to human health now and in the future[40]
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Comment on

References

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    1. Lighten J, Papadopulos AS, Mohammed RS, et al. Evolutionary genetics of immunological supertypes reveals two faces of the Red Queen. Nat Commun. 2017;8:1294. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Crow JF, Kimura M. An introduction to population genetics theory. New York: Harper and Row; 1970.

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