Walking the path: exploring the pathways of emerging viral diseases

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the limitations of our current understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving the emergence of new epidemics. The circulation theory has provided a hypothesis for explaining the mechanism of viral disease emergence in humans. We modelled the circulation theory to test whether the proposed mechanism is plausible.

We tested scientific theories of viral disease emergence using an approach implemented in engineering and industry to assess the validity and plausibility of a model. We used an EDEN possibilistic modeling framework based on a qualitative and discrete event formalism.

A possibilistic model based on discrete-event systems validated the circulation theory of viral zoonotic diseases emergence. The model explored all potential pathways within a pathosystem and analysed the dynamics of known zoonotic RNA viruses and one DNA virus (Mpox). Five different pathways, all relevant to the circulation theory, can explain all dynamics of viral disease emergence.

This works shows that simple biological pathways can easily explain the emergence of zoonotic viruses. It also shows that the circulation model is plausible and meets the requirements to pass the Petri's nets test. This work also shows that the circulation can be broken down into several pathways matching known viral processes.