Natural pandemics are routinely classified as a current global catastrophic risk and have been a risk for most of human history. Emerging infectious diseases (EID) have significant economic and public health impacts, and evidence from recent responses viral outbreaks support this classification of pandemics as arguably the most important risk to humans. Zoonotic pathogens, are diseases transmitted from animals directly to humans and comprise greater than 60 % of EIDs. In this study, we have exploited unbiased high throughput sequencing to examine the exchange of virome between rats and rat handlers in Vietnam.
Results/Conclusions
Using high throughput metagenomic sequencing of pooled samples, we investigated viral loads of rats, rat handlers, and human controls without exposure to rats. We identified a set of viruses specifically shared by rats and rat handlers but absent in controls. We also identified a significant proportion of rodent-borne zoonotic pathogens circulating in the population. These studies demonstrate ongoing viral transfer between humans that have contact between rats and have revealed mechanisms of cross-species viral transfer.