PLEC2021-007968 - Desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías para el

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) constitute one of the most important threats for the livestock industry with a serious socio-economic impact worldwide. Global changes linked to human activity, including climatic changes, deeply affect the rise and distribution of these diseases, creating new opportunities for them to thrive in unexpected hosts, new ecological niches or wider geographical areas. As a result, outbreaks of emerging diseases are more and more frequent, posing an important threat both to livestock production and public health, since many EIDs are zoonotic. Most EIDs (and most dangerous ones) are caused by viruses. Hence, by tracking the animal (including wildlife) and environmental virus pool it is possible to detect viruses that may cause the next emerging diseases affecting livestock and humans. The here described NEXTHREAT proposal consists of a One Health approach to explore already available technologies for tracking the environmental & wildlife virus pool in order to implement effective strategies for the detection of emerging viruses, potentially harmful for livestock and human health, and thus enable their prevention and control. The proposal can be considered as a proof-of-concept study focusing on specific geographic areas in Spain with known potential for releasing newly emerging viruses (“hot spots”), which will be screened for viruses at the environmental-livestock interface. For economy of resources, the approach is based on a selection of elements or “matrices” known to have a key role as reservoirs of emerging viruses from which spillover to livestock, and eventually to humans, usually takes place. These matrices belong to three categories: animal (vertebrate) samples, arthropod (vector) samples and environmental (water) samples. These samples will be surveyed using the above-mentioned technologies. As a prominent expected result of this strategy, an exhaustive molecular characterization of viruses circulating in the wildlife/environmental-livestock interface will be achieved, together with data of livestock exposure to most relevant viruses, acquired by multiplex antibody assays. Analysis of spillover risks associated with these viruses will hopefully result in a priority list of risk viruses against which we will target our efforts for developing virus-specific diagnostic tests and predictive maps of high-risk areas for virus emergence, aimed at enabling a better prevention and control of emerging diseases. The results of this proof-of-concept will potentially guide further studies beyond the here explored geographic and ecological limits: If successful, this approach may become a chief strategy for the animal and public authorities in each country to reinforce capacity to prevent the impact of the next emerging diseases on animal and human health, and reduce their spread risk.