Apr 08, 2021 12:00:00

Creates a list of 'viruses that are likely to cause a new pandemic'

The new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a

zoonotic disease that is transmitted from animals to humans, and hundreds of thousands of viruses carried by animals pose a similar threat. May bring. There, a research team at the University of California, Davis ranks 'viruses that are likely to cause a new pandemic,' allowing other scientists, policy makers, and public health officials to see a list of dangerous viruses. We have released an open access tool called 'SpillOver'.

SpillOver
https://spillover.global/

Ranking the risk of animal-to-human spillover for newly discovered viruses | PNAS
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/15/e2002324118

Ranking virus spillover risk | EurekAlert! Science News
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/uoc--rvs033121.php

These viruses are the most likely to trigger the next pandemic, according to scientists | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/spillover-virus-ranking-tool.html

'SARS-CoV-2 is just one example of thousands of viruses that can spread from animals to humans,' said Zoë Grange, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis. He argues that virus threats need to be identified and prioritized before another virus can have a devastating effect on human society.

Already, about 250 virus infections are known to be zoonotic diseases, but the research team has described a potentially dangerous virus that has not yet been confirmed to infect humans, saying, 'Animal infected with the virus. A total of 32 risk factors such as 'number of animals' and 'frequency of contact with humans in areas where the virus was detected' were evaluated. Based on the results of this study, we ranked threats for 887 viruses and published the results as an open access tool called 'SpillOver'.

When you actually access 'SpillOver', the following screen will be displayed. Click 'RANKING COMPARISION' to see the ranking.

Then, the virus ranks based on the threat level were listed. The 13th place is 'Coronavirus 229E (bat strain)', which is a virus that infects bats living in Africa. Clicking on each virus item ...

You can check more detailed information.

Also, by changing the items and filters on the left side of the screen, you can change the order and search for viruses belonging to a specific family. By default, viruses that cause known zoonotic diseases are not displayed, so if you select 'YES' in 'SHOW KNOWN ZOONOTICS (display known zoonotic diseases)' ...

Viruses that have already been confirmed to infect humans are also displayed. The first threat rank is the Lassa virus that causes the acute viral infectious disease 'Lassa fever ' found throughout West Africa, the second is SARS-CoV-2, and the threat ranks 1 to 12 are known zoonotic infections. It is occupied by illness. In addition, it seems that SARS-CoV-2 is second because important information is still unknown, and as researchers learn more about SARS-CoV-2, it may become threat rank first.

SpillOver was an open access tool and a crowdsourcing platform at the time, allowing other researchers to add information about the viruses in the list and add new viruses. I will.

Research co-author Jonna Mazet said, 'This tool goes far beyond previously thought virus rankings and enables real-time scientific collaboration to quickly identify new threats. The purpose is to start a conversation. '' SpillOver helps us better understand the threat of viruses to health and act to mitigate the risk before a pandemic occurs. ' ..