RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Monkeypox virus shows potential to infect a diverse range of native animal species across Europe, indicating high risk of becoming endemic in the region
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.08.13.503846
DO 10.1101/2022.08.13.503846
A1 Marcus SC Blagrove
A1 Jack Pilgrim
A1 Aurelia Kotsiri
A1 Melody Hui
A1 Matthew Baylis
A1 Maya Wardeh
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/08/15/2022.08.13.503846.abstract
AB Background Monkeypox is a zoonotic virus which persists in animal reservoirs and periodically spills over into humans, causing outbreaks. During the current 2022 outbreak, monkeypox virus has persisted via human-human transmission, across all major continents and for longer than any previous record. This unprecedented spread creates the potential for the virus to ‘spillback’ into local susceptible animal populations. Persistent transmission amongst such animals raises the prospect of monkeypox virus becoming enzootic in new regions. However, the full and specific range of potential animal hosts and reservoirs of monkeypox remains unknown, especially in newly at-risk non-endemic areas.Methods Here, utilising ensembles of classifiers comprising different class balancing techniques and incorporating instance weights, we identify which animal species are potentially susceptible to monkeypox virus. Subsequently, we generate spatial distribution maps to highlight high-risk geographic areas at high resolution.Findings We show that the number of potentially susceptible species is currently underestimated by 2.4 to 4.3-fold, and that a high density of wild susceptible species are native to Europe. We provide lists of these species, and highlight high-risk hosts for spillback and potential long-term reservoirs, which may enable monkeypox virus to become endemic.Interpretation We highlight the European red fox and brown rat, as they have established interactions with potentially contaminated urban waste and sewage, which provides a mechanism for potential spillback. We anticipate that our results will enable targeted active surveillance of potential spillback event, to minimise risk of the virus becoming endemic in these regions. Our results also indicate the potential of domesticated cats and dogs (latter now confirmed) being susceptible to monkeypox virus, and hence support many health organisations’ advice for infected humans to avoid physical interaction with pets.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.