Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026
05:08
Application of I TASSER, trRosetta, UCSF Chimera, HADDOCK server, and HEX loria for De Novo and In Silico Design of Proteins
Published on: July 8, 2025
Reservoir interactions and disease emergence
1Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. timothy@reluga.org
Theoretical Population Biology
|August 28, 2007
Summary
Frequent contact with animal reservoirs increases the risk of emerging infectious diseases. Even with limited adaptation, ongoing interactions can facilitate pathogen emergence and sustained human transmission.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Disease Ecology
Background:
- Animal populations serve as reservoirs for emerging infectious diseases.
- Pathogen emergence in humans requires a basic reproduction number (R0) greater than 1 for self-sustaining transmission.
- Novel pathogens may initially have an R0 less than 1 due to lack of adaptation to the human host.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how ongoing interactions between human and animal reservoir populations influence the probability of pathogen emergence.
- To extend existing models of pathogen evolution by incorporating reservoir dynamics.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a stepping-stone model of pathogen evolution.
- Incorporated reservoir interactions into the model to simulate disease emergence dynamics.
- Analyzed the impact of varying frequencies of human-reservoir contact on adaptation and emergence probability.
Main Results:
- Infrequent reservoir interactions do not significantly alter disease emergence probability.
- Moderately frequent interactions can promote pathogen emergence by aiding adaptation to humans.
- Frequent interactions facilitate emergence even with minimal pathogen adaptation to the human host.
Conclusions:
- Perpetuated contact between humans and animal reservoirs, often driven by ecological or environmental changes, significantly elevates the risk of emerging infectious diseases.
- Understanding the frequency and nature of human-animal contact is crucial for predicting and mitigating disease emergence.
- Interventions aimed at reducing human-reservoir contact may be effective in preventing future pandemics.
Related Concept Videos
01:30Reservoir of Infection
Infectious diseases arise from intricate interactions between pathogens and their reservoirs. A reservoir of infection refers to the natural habitat where a pathogen lives, grows, and multiplies, serving as a continual source of infection. Reservoirs are broadly classified as either living or nonliving, and each plays a unique role in disease transmission, significantly influencing public health interventions and control strategies.Humans act as reservoirs for a wide array of pathogens,...
01:28Infectious Diseases and Their Occurrence
Infectious diseases appear in populations through various transmission patterns, influenced by pathogen characteristics, population immunity, environmental conditions, and social behavior. Understanding these patterns is essential for effective public health surveillance and intervention. These categories—sporadic, outbreak, epidemic, pandemic, and endemic—help frame the nature and scope of disease events.Sporadic diseases occur irregularly and infrequently, without a predictable temporal or...
01:18Steps in Outbreak Investigation
In the ever-evolving field of public health, statistical analysis serves as a cornerstone for understanding and managing disease outbreaks. By leveraging various statistical tools, health professionals can predict potential outbreaks, analyze ongoing situations, and devise effective responses to mitigate impact. For that to happen, there are a few possible stages of the analysis:
01:20Infection
When a pathogen enters the body and reproduces, it can cause an infection, damage body cells, and cause illness symptoms that eventually lead to disease. Therefore, its prevention requires breaking the chain of infection.
The chain begins with pathogens: bacteria, viruses, fungi, prions, or parasites such as protozoa helminths. These can be present on the skin as transient or resident flora, or they can be acquired from the environment. Identifying and treating the type of infection and...
The chain begins with pathogens: bacteria, viruses, fungi, prions, or parasites such as protozoa helminths. These can be present on the skin as transient or resident flora, or they can be acquired from the environment. Identifying and treating the type of infection and...
01:29Malaria
Malaria pathogenesis in humans reflects a delicate interplay between parasite biology and host response. Clinical illness reflects a host’s immune response to the parasite’s asexual replication cycle, which is often asymptomatic in individuals with partial immunity. From the parasite's perspective, transmission between mosquito and human with minimal host pathology is evolutionarily advantageous. Among the six Plasmodium species infecting humans, P. falciparum and P. vivax dominate in global...
00:57Viral Recombination
Cells are sometimes infected by more than one virus at once. When two viruses disassemble to expose their genomes for replication in the same cell, similar regions of their genomes can pair together and exchange sequences in a process called recombination. Alternatively, viruses with segmented genomes can swap segments in a process called reassortment.