Viral Prospecting in Wildlife Doesn’t Pan Out

In a recent article, Dr. Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology and Director at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Massachusetts, along with former undergraduate student Aishani Aatresh, examined the relationship between viral prospecting in wildlife and the development of medical countermeasures (MCM). Their analysis focused on vaccines and drug development, using viruses in the Filoviridae family as a case study. Providing context about viral prospecting in wildlife, Aishani mentioned that “Viral discovery or viral prospecting are interchangeably used at times, but in the paper we specifically refer to viral prospecting as a subset of surveillance efforts directed toward discovering novel viruses in animals prior to spillover to humans”. Through analyses of several datasets, the researchers examined whether viral prospecting is essential, sufficient, or feasible for predicting emerging infectious diseases and guiding the development of MCMs.

The authors suggest that current viral prospecting efforts aimed at identifying novel viruses in animals have had limited success in predicting which viruses are likely to cause significant outbreaks in humans. The authors suggest that current viral prospecting efforts aimed at identifying novel viruses in animals have had limited success in predicting which viruses are likely to cause significant outbreaks in humans. The article notes that recent outbreaks of international concern have been caused by viruses already known to science and primarily first identified in humans. These findings complicate the assumption that surveillance projects like USAID’s PREDICT programs and the Global Viral Project offer a sound strategy for discovering future viral threats to humans. Dr. Lipsitch further clarified that “There have not been really any vaccines that were developed as a result of virus prospecting and the reasons for that I think are more open for speculation”.

Given the limited available resources, the authors recommended a more targeted approach to surveillance, focusing on humans who have close interactions with wildlife or livestock, particularly in high risks areas. This strategy could provide more effective indicators of emerging disease risks and offer a better understanding of disease burden, while also enhancing our knowledge of viral ecology. Furthermore, it was noted that organizations such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which works to accelerate the development of vaccines and biological countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats, were established to address gaps in vaccine research and development. Increased investment in such organizations could strengthen our preparedness against potential viral threats.

Aishani Aatresh and Professor Lipsitch detailed logical arguments are in agreement with those of other scholars, including some at UTMB and our own. In 2021, researchers at the University of Sydney wrote:

“Given the enormity of the virosphere, that RNA viruses evolve so quickly that repeat sampling will be regularly required to accurately track natural diversity, and that virome composition will likely vary across the geographic range occupied by an individual host species, a more targeted, and arguably more productive, approach will be to focus sampling directly at the animal–human interface.”¹ 

Similarly, in 2022 another research team wrote

“In light of the contested benefits and unique risks of large-scale wildlife virus discovery, a focus on One Health surveillance and behavioural interventions targeted at the human-animal interface may be both superior for preventing natural epidemics and reducing the risk from accidental and deliberate emergence.” ²

Our UTMB One Health Research and Training team embraces this thinking and through targeted One Health surveillance for novel viruses in live animal markets and farms or among patients with pneumonia hospitalizations located in hotspots for viral emergence,³ we have detected a number of viral spillover events. Sometimes these spillover viruses seem to be moving from animals to humans, sometimes from humans to animals, and sometime from animals to animals:

• 1^st evidence that metapneumoviruses are jumping species between humans & turkeys^4,5
• 1^st evidence of equine influenza infections among camels ⁶
• 1^st report of influenza D virus detections in chickens⁷
• 1^st report of a canine-like coronavirus among humans hospitalized with pneumonia⁸
• 1^st evidence of a vampire-bat-like adenovirus infecting human hospitalized with pneumonia⁹
• Detections of human enterovirus in pig slurry¹⁰
• Early evidence that Texas dairy workers had subclinical infections with HPAI H5N1¹¹
• 1^st evidence of a rodent coronavirus in beef cattle with respiratory disease¹²
• 1^st evidence of a bovine adenovirus infection among humans with respiratory disease¹³

We applaud Aishani Aatresh and Professor Lipsitch outstanding publication and the clarity of their thinking.

References

1. Holmes EC, Rambaut A, Andersen KG. Pandemics: spend on surveillance, not prediction. Nature 2018;558(7709):180–182. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-018-05373-w.
2. Sandbrink J, Ahuja J, Swett J, Koblentz G, Standley C. Mitigating Biosecurity Challenges of Wildlife Virus Discovery and Characterisation. SSRN: February 14, 2022 2022.
3. Gray GC, Robie ER, Studstill CJ, Nunn CL. Mitigating Future Respiratory Virus Pandemics: New Threats and Approaches to Consider. Viruses 2021;13(4). DOI: 10.3390/v13040637.
4. Kayali G, Ortiz EJ, Chorazy ML, et al. Serologic evidence of avian metapneumovirus infection among adults occupationally exposed to Turkeys. Vector borne and zoonotic diseases 2011;11(11):1453–8. (Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't) (In eng). DOI: 10.1089/vbz.2011.0637.
5. Velayudhan BT, Nagaraja KV, Thachil AJ, Shaw DP, Gray GC, Halvorson DA. Human metapneumovirus in turkey poults. Emerging Infectious Diseases 2006;12(12):1853–9. (In eng) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17235379).
6. Yondon M, Zayat B, Nelson MI, et al. Equine influenza A(H3N8) virus isolated from Bactrian camel, Mongolia. Emerg Infect Dis 2014;20(12):2144–7. DOI: 10.3201/eid2012.140435.
7. Bailey ES, Fieldhouse JK, Alarja NA, et al. First sequence of influenza D virus identified in poultry farm bioaerosols in Sarawak, Malaysia. Trop Dis Travel Med Vaccines 2020;6:5. DOI: 10.1186/s40794-020-0105-9.
8. Vlasova AN, Diaz A, Damtie D, et al. Novel Canine Coronavirus Isolated from a Hospitalized Patient With Pneumonia in East Malaysia. Clin Infect Dis 2022;74(3):446–454. DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciab456.
9. Fieldhouse JK, Bailey ES, Toh TH, et al. Panspecies molecular assays detect viral pathogens missed by real-time PCR/reverse-transcriptase PCR among pneumonia patients, Sarawak, Malaysia. Trop Dis Travel Med Vaccines 2020;6:13. DOI: 10.1186/s40794-020-00114-2.
10. Bailey ES, Borkenhagen LK, Choi JY, Greer AE, Culhane MR, Gray GC. A feasibility study of conducting surveillance for swine pathogens in slurry from North Carolina swine farms. Sci Rep 2020;10(1):10059. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67313-x.
11. Shittu I, Silva D, Oguzie JU, et al. A One Health Investigation into H5N1 Avian Influenza Virus Epizootics on Two Dairy Farms. Clin Infect Dis 2025;80(2):331–338. DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciae576.
12. Shittu I, Oguzie JU, Hernandez-Vidal G, et al. Novel Rodent Coronavirus-like Virus Detected Among Beef Cattle with Respiratory Disease in Mexico. Viruses 2025;17(3). DOI: 10.3390/v17030433.
13. Ansari J, Robie ER, Bailey ES, et al. Molecular Typing of Adenoviruses Associated with Respiratory Illness Among Humans and Poultry, Pakistan, 10 April 2025, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square [https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5811360/v1]