One Health: EAACI Position Paper on coronaviruses at the human-animal interface, with a specific focus on comparative and zoonotic aspects of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

The latest outbreak of a coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), evolved into a worldwide pandemic with massive effects on health, quality of life, and economy. Given the short period of time since the outbreak, there are several knowledge gaps on the comparative and zoonotic aspects of this new virus. Within the One Health concept, the current EAACI position paper dwells into the current knowledge on SARS-CoV-2's receptors, symptoms, transmission routes for human and animals living in close vicinity to each other, usefulness of animal models to study this disease and management options to avoid intra- and interspecies transmission. Similar pandemics might appear unexpectedly and more frequently in the near future due to climate change, consumption of exotic foods and drinks, globe-trotter travel possibilities, the growing world population, the decreasing production space, declining room for wildlife and free-ranging animals, and the changed lifestyle including living very close to animals. Therefore, both the society and the health authorities need to be aware and well prepared for similar future situations, and research needs to focus on prevention and fast development of treatment options (medications, vaccines).

Keywords: (reverse) zoonosis; One Health; companion animals and pets; coronavirus; disease transmission.

FIGURE 1

Timeline of the three coronaviruses causing pandemic events in the last 20 year., Numbers for SARS‐CoV‐2 taken from the WHO homepage (accessed 6 June 2021)

FIGURE 2

Schematic structure of coronaviruses

FIGURE 3

Transmission routes of SARS‐CoV‐2. *, possible intermediate hosts; <‐>, intra‐species transmission; ?, still under investigation; ‐‐‐, no susceptibility; ‐‐>, low susceptibility; ‐>, high susceptibility