Peter Daszak

EcoHealth Alliance

Wildlife farming is a long-standing practice in Viet Nam, dating back to the late 1800s, and it has experienced significant expansion alongside the country's economic development. In light of the growing concern about zoonotic disease spillover at this human-animal interface, particularly in the context of a suspected escalation of wildlife farming...

Pteropus bats are the natural reservoir for Nipah virus, and in Bangladesh, it is transmitted to people through consumption of raw or fermented date palm sap. Our objective was to understand seasonal patterns of bat feeding on date palm sap at a location where sap is collected year-round. Seven nights each month over three years, we mounted infrare...

Introduction and Objectives or Purpose: Coronavirus (CoV) has caused three epidemics and pandemics in past decades, resulting in a substantial impact on human and animal health and the global economy. This study aimed to screen pre-pandemic human samples to detect and molecularly characterize known and novel coronaviruses in humans at high-risk ani...

Introduction and Objectives or Purpose: Rodents and shrews live in close proximity to humans and have been identified as critical hosts of zoonotic pathogens. As part of a broad One Health surveillance effort, we conducted surveillance for novel zoonotic viruses in wildlife, domestic animals, and people. Paramyxoviruses (PMV) was among the priority...

Host-virus associations have co-evolved under ecological and evolutionary selection pressures that shape cross-species transmission and spillover to humans. Observed virus-host associations provide relevant context for newly discovered wildlife viruses to assess knowledge gaps in host-range and estimate pathways for potential human infection. Using...

Anthropogenic land-use changes increase the frequency of interactions and habitat overlap between humans and macaques which play an important role in zoonotic disease transmission. This exploratory qualitative study aimed to examine connections between land-use change and macaque-human interactions and assess the chance of zoonotic disease transmis...

Background: Nipah virus (NiV) infection, often fatal in humans, is primarily transmitted in Bangladesh through the consumption of date palm sap contaminated by Pteropus bats. Person-to-person transmission is also common and increases the concern of large outbreaks. This study aimed to characterize the molecular epidemiology, phylogenetic relationsh...

The death toll and economic loss resulting from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic are stark reminders that we are vulnerable to zoonotic viral threats. Strategies are needed to identify and characterize animal viruses that pose the greatest risk of spillover and spread in humans and inform public health inter...

Background: Rotavirus-A (RVA) is the primary cause of acute dehydrating diarrhea in humans and numerous animal species. Due to the segmented nature of the RVA genome, animal RVA strains have the potential to adapt in human hosts through reassortment with other co-infecting human viruses. The study aimed to apply a non-invasive approach using fecal...

Background: Rabies is a neglected zoonotic disease causing approximately 59,000 human deaths globally, losses of over 3.7 million disability-adjusted life years and $8.6 billion per year. In Bangladesh, an estimated 166,590 people suffer from animal bites, resulting in approximately 2100 reported human rabies deaths annually. To best of our knowled...

Background: Coronaviruses (CoVs) are the causative agents of significant diseases resulting in a substantial impact on human and animal health. Both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV originated from an animal reservoir and in recent years has caused a major burden on human health and health infrastructure globally. This study was conducted to detect and molecu...

Abstract Background: Nipah virus (NiV) infection, often fatal in humans, is primarily transmitted in Bangladesh through consumption of date palm sap contaminated by Pteropus bats. Person to person transmission is also common and increases the concern of large outbreaks. This study aimed to characterize the molecular epidemiology, phylogenetic rela...

The study added information about the genetic diversity and molecular characterization of nipah virus (NiV) strains, both from bats and humans in Bangladesh. This study provides molecular and methodological information for early detection of NiV in the environmental samples to assess its epidemic potential in humans. It will help in understanding...

Rotavirus A (RVA) is the primary cause of acute dehydrating diarrhea in human and numerous animal species. Animal-to-human interspecies transmission is one of the evolutionary mechanisms driving rotavirus strain diversity in humans. We screened fresh feces from 416 bats (201 Pteropus medius, 165 Rousettus leschenaultii and 50 Taphozous melanopogon)...

Introduction: Nearly 75 percent of all new, emerging, or re-emerging diseases affecting humans at the beginning of the 21st century are zoonotic. Human behaviors and practices are key risk components for pathogen spillover, amplification, and the spread of zoonotic diseases. This exploratory qualitative study aims to understand the behaviors, pract...

Introduction: Coronaviruses and paramyxoviruses are important viral families that account for a significant number of human, and animal diseases. Over the last decades, the emergence of coronaviruses and paramyxoviruses causes an increased incidence of zoonotic transmission among animal and human host that have been arisen a major public health con...

Background: The USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT): PREDICT program began in 2009, designed to prepare the public health community to combat disease threats at the first stage of their emergence through an early warning system for detecting novel zoonotic diseases in parts of the world most vulnerable to disease emergence. Working with local par...

Background: Recent discovery of novel bat influenza A viruses (IAV) raises questions regarding host range and the role of bats in the evolution of IAV. The ability to infect wide range of host species makes the ecology of these viruses both interesting and critically important. Methods: We conducted longitudinal surveillance in bats from 2015 to 20...

Background Nipah virus is a highly virulent zoonotic pathogen that can be transmitted between humans. Understanding the dynamics of person-to-person transmission is key to designing effective interventions. Methods We used data from all Nipah virus cases identified during outbreak investigations in Bangladesh from April 2001 through April 2014 to...

Despite molecular and serologic evidence of Nipah virus in bats from various locations, attempts to isolate live virus have been largely unsuccessful. We report isolation and full-genome characterization of 10 Nipah virus isolates from Pteropus medius bats sampled in Bangladesh during 2013 and 2014.

Background: Rodents represent around 43% of all mammalian species, are widely distributed, and are the natural reservoirs of a diverse group of zoonotic viruses, including hantaviruses, Lassa viruses, and tick-borne encephalitis viruses. Thus, analyzing the viral diversity harbored by rodents could assist efforts to predict and reduce the risk of...

Background: Rotavirus A (RVA) is an important cause of diarrhea in humans and numerous animal species globally. Animal-to-human interspecies transmission is one of the evolutionary mechanisms driving rotavirus strain diversity in humans. This study aims to detect and characterize RVA in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) at wildlife-human interface i...

Background: Rodents and shrews live in close proximity to humans and have been identified as important hosts of zoonotic pathogens. The Emerging Pandemic Threats: PREDICT project aims to identify novel zoonotic viruses in rodents, shrews and other key wildlife groups that have a high degree of contact with people and domestic animals. Methods: Rect...

Background: Hunting and butchering of wild animals may cause the transmission of zoonotic diseases to humans. Our understanding of the underlying causes of hunting, trading, and consumption of wildlife at the community level in Bangladesh is limited. Methods: This qualitative study proposes to understand hunting behavior, wildlife consumption patte...

BACKGROUND: Zoonotic disease emergence events have increased in Bangladesh recently due to changing agricultural practices, demographic trends, and landscape and other environmental changes. This emergence causes health problems as well as economic loss to human populations and spans across sectors, threatening food safety, poverty alleviation and...

BACKGROUND: Environmental change is not a new issue in the study of public health. Many public health studies have been conducted that link environmental changes to emerging and re-emerging viruses. However, these studies rarely examine human-animal interaction in relation to environmental change. Zoonotic diseases have been considered a major publ...

The authors should be: Hongying Li and Peter Daszak.

The rapid urban spread of Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014 and consequent breakdown of control measures led to a significant economic impact as well as the burden on public health and wellbeing. The US government appropriated $5.4 Billion for FY2015 and WHO proposed a $100 Million emergency fund largely to curtail the threat of future outbreaks....

Dromedary camels are bred domestically and imported into Bangladesh. In 2015, of 55 camels tested for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in Dhaka, 17 (31%) were seropositive, including 1 bred locally. None were PCR positive. The potential for infected camels in urban markets could have public health implications and warrants further inves...

Sampling locations of dromedary camels, Bangladesh, 2015.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194647.].

We report on a study conducted in Guangdong Province, China, to characterize behaviors and perceptions associated with transmission of pathogens with pandemic potential in highly exposed human populations at the animal-human interface. A risk factor/exposure survey was administered to individuals with high levels of exposure to wildlife. Serologica...

Prevalence of seropositivity for tested viruses, by reported wildlife exposure. (PDF)

Study questionnaire for persons hunting, butchering, eating and/or keeping wild animals as pets. (PDF)

Cross-species transmission of viruses from wildlife animal reservoirs poses a marked threat to human and animal health1. Bats have been recognized as one of the most important reservoirs for emerging viruses and the transmission of a coronavirus that originated in bats to humans via intermediate hosts was responsible for the high-impact emerging zo...

Background: Zoonotic diseases contribute to significant disease burden and economic losses that often span across multiple sectors with local and global implications. For example, global economic losses from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) were estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, with substantial impacts to travel and tourism In...

We present evidence for a case of spotted fever rickettsiosis with severe complications in a young adult male. Although spotted fever group rickettsiae (SFGR) have been reported as the most prevalent cause of rickettsiosis in rural areas of Sabah, Malaysia since the 1980s, this is the first detailed case report of suspected SFGR in the state. Curre...

Expanded viral discovery can improve mitigation

Nipah virus is a zoonotic virus, harbored by bats and lethal to humans. Bat to human spillovers occur every winter in Bangladesh. However, there is significant heterogeneity in the number of spillovers detected by district and year that remains unexplained. We analyzed data from all 57 spillovers from 2007-2013 and found that temperature difference...

Nipah virus–specific primers, epidemiologic link between cases within each Nipah virus cluster, and clustered and isolated case-patients, Bangladesh, December 2013–April 2014.

Nipah virus (NiV) has been transmitted from patient to caregivers in Bangladesh presumably through oral secretions. We aimed to detect whether NiV-infected patients contaminate hospital surfaces with the virus. During December 2013–April 2014, we collected 1 swab sample from 5 surfaces near NiV-infected patients and tested surface and oral swab sam...

Trade eliminates geographic barriers, allowing for novel exchange of goods and services, but also creates pathways for the unintentional spread of infectious pathogens such as foot and mouth disease. In the absence of trade regulation, a producer’s choice of import origin depends on relative prices and costs associated with trading partners. This p...

A large number of SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoV) have been detected in horseshoe bats since 2005 in different areas of China. However, these bat SARSr-CoVs show sequence differences from SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in different genes (S, ORF8, ORF3, etc) and are considered unlikely to represent the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV. Herein, we...

Distribution of SARSr-CoVs highly similar to SARS-CoV in the variable S, ORF3 and ORF8 genes in the single cave. (DOCX)

Alignment of amino acid sequences of the receptor-binding motif (corresponding to aa 424–495 of SARS-CoV S protein). Two clades of the SARSr-CoVs identified from bats in the studied cave are indicated with vertical lines on the left. (PPTX)

Alignment of nucleotide sequences of a genomic region covering ORF6 to ORF7a. ORFX is located between ORF6 and ORF7a in the genomes of WIV1, WIV16, Rs7327 and Rs4874. The start codon and stop codon of ORFX are marked with red boxes. The deletion responsible for the long ORFX in Rs7327 and Rs4874 is marked with the blue box. (PPTX)

Detection of potential recombination events by similarity plot and boot scan analysis. (A) Full-length genome sequence of SARSr-CoV Rs4084 was used as query sequence and RsSHC014, Rf4092 and Rs4081 as reference sequences. (B) Full-length genome sequence of SARSr-CoV Rs4237 was used as query sequence and SARSr-CoV Rs4247, Rs4081 and Rs3367 as refere...

Quantification of SARSr-CoV in individual bat fecal samples. The number of genome copies of SARSr-CoV per gram of bat feces was determined by quantitative real-time PCR targeting the RdRp gene. Samples from which the SARSr-CoV RBD sequences were successfully amplified are indicated in red. (PPTX)

Alignment of amino acid sequences of ORF3b protein. (PPTX)

Chinese provinces where bat SARSr-CoVs have been detected. (PPTX)

Full-length genome sequences of bat SARSr-CoVs newly identified in this study. (FAS)

Phylogenetic analyses based on nucleotide sequences of the S gene (A), ORF3a (B) and ORF8 (C). The trees were constructed by the maximum likelihood method using the LG model with bootstrap values determined by 1000 replicates. Only bootstraps > 50% are shown. Rs, Rhinolophus sinicus; Rf, Rhinolophus ferremequinum; Rm, Rhinolophus macrotis; Ra, Rhin...

The successful or failed rescue of the chimeric SARSr-CoVs. (A) Cytopathic effects in Vero E6 cells transfected with the infectious BAC clones constructed with the backbone of WIV1 and various S genes of different bat SARSr-CoV strains. Microphotographs were taken 24 hours post transfection. (B) The culture media supernatant collected from the cell...

Spike substitution strategy. The original fragments E and F were shortened to leave spike gene as an independent fragment. The new fragments were designated as Es and Fs. BsaI or BsmBI sites were introduced into the junctions of Es/Spike and Spike/Fs. Then any spike could be substituted into the genome of SARSr-CoV WIV1 through this strategy. (TIF)

Comparison of the novel bat SARSr-CoVs identified in this study with human/civet SARS-CoVs and previously described bat SARSr-CoVs. (DOCX)

Zoonoses originating from wildlife represent a significant threat to global health, security and economic growth, and combatting their emergence is a public health priority. However, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying their emergence remains rudimentary. Here we update a global database of emerging infectious disease (EID) events, creat...

Though human-macaque interactions may trigger public health concerns, there is insufficient research on effects of environmental changes and rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) interactions with humans. This qualitative study aims to understand context, risk practices, and patterns of human-macaque interactions and potential risk of spillover in Bangla...

Rodents and shrews live in close proximity to humans and have been identified as important hosts of zoonotic pathogens. The results of viral family-level PCR testing performed on rectal and throat swab collected from 427 rodents and shrews from 10 districts in Bangladesh between June 2011 and October 2013 are presented. All samples were screened fo...

Nipah virus (NiV) is an emerging zoonotic virus that has caused seasonal outbreaks of encephalitis in Bangladesh with greater than 75% mortality. Pteropus medius is the putative reservoir in Bangladesh, though little is understood about NiV in these bats or their ecology.The primary route of transmission to humans appears to be date palm sap consum...

Background: Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses can cause extremely rapid deaths in wild, non-anseriforme birds, and its epidemiology is closely linked with diet, foraging behavior, habitat use, migratory pattern, population size and frequency of aggregation. A One Health, multidisciplinary investigation was initiated by the Government of Ban...

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) has caused ≥500 reported outbreaks in poultry and wild birds in Bangladesh since 2007. In early 2011 and 2016 H5N1 spread among wild crows in several Bangladesh districts, including, Dhaka. Responding to reports of a crow mortality event in Mohakhali, Dhaka, a multidisciplinary One Health team investigated c...

Bangladesh has experienced outbreaks of avian influenza(AI) frequently from 2007 until 2012 and thereafter only sporadic outbreaks were reported. In January 2017, a cluster of sick and dead poultry in Dhamrai Upazila was reported to Department of Livestock Services. The government reference laboratory confirmed Influenza A (H5N1) and notified to OI...

Preventing emergence of new zoonotic viruses depends on understanding determinants for human risk. Nipah virus (NiV) is a lethal zoonotic pathogen that has spilled over from bats into human populations, with limited person-to-person transmission. We examined ecologic and human behavioral drivers of geographic variation for risk of NiV infection in...

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/nature22975.

Biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate, especially among vertebrates. Disease is commonly ignored or dismissed in investigations of wildlife declines, partly because there is often little or no obvious clinical evidence of illness. We argue that disease has the potential to cause many species declines and extinctions and that there is mounti...

Infectious diseases affect people, domestic animals and wildlife alike, with many pathogens being able to infect multiple species. Fifty years ago, following the wide-scale manufacture and use of antibiotics and vaccines, it seemed that the battle against infections was being won for the human population. Since then, however, and in addition to inc...