spillover

A large pool of viruses are circulating and we don’t become familiar with them until we see a spillover event and people getting ill.

Each archived sample can be used to identify the wildlife sources of a disease, monitor changes in disease prevalence and distribution over time, and identify environmental variables that may lead to spillover into people.

As human populations expand into shrinking bat habitat, bats and humans increasingly cross paths, making viral spillover events and other harmful interactions more likely.

To identify good targets for this intervention, epidemiologists may need more or better information about which animal diseases are on the rise, and which ones have the greatest potential for spillover to humans.