Scientists Warn These 2 Viruses Could Become The Next Pandemic

Without readiness preparation, a quickly transmitting virus could cause a widespread human epidemic. Prevention requires better virus monitoring, reliable tests, effective treatments, and vaccines

Infectious disease experts are warning that two animal-borne pathogens that have already jumped to humans, causing severe respiratory illnesses in some cases, could become more widespread without improvements in surveillance and diagnostic testing.

In a January article in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers said that without such steps, the influenza D virus and canine coronavirus could reach epidemic or even pandemic proportions.

“Our review of the literature indicates these two viruses pose respiratory disease threats to humans, yet little has been done to respond to or prevent infection from these viruses,” co-author John Lednicky, a research professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health at the University of Florida’s College of Public Health and Health Professions, said in a news release.

“If these viruses evolve the capacity to easily transmit person to person, they may be able to cause epidemics or pandemics since most people won’t have immunity to them,” Lednicky said.

The research team also included infectious disease experts from the University of Texas, Ohio State University, and the University of Kentucky.

Below are some things to know.

What Is Canine Coronavirus?

Canine coronavirus, or CCoV, is not the same virus as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. It can cause gastrointestinal illnesses in dogs and, in rare cases, infections in humans. Documented infections have been linked to pneumonia hospitalizations in Southeast Asia, the researchers noted.

Despite that, “diagnostic tests are not routinely performed for the virus, so the extent to which the virus affects the population at large is not known,” said Lednicky, a member of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida’s Gainesville campus.

A canine coronavirus was found in a medical team member who had traveled from Florida to Haiti in 2017, according to a 2022 study by Lednicky’s team. The person experienced mild malaise and fever, but didn’t become seriously ill.

The virus, named HuCCoV_Z19Haiti, has continued to mutate.

Scientists led by Dr. Gregory Gray, director of the One Health Research and Training Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, reported the discovery of a new strain, CCoV-HuPn-2018, in 2021.

The strain was found in a child hospitalized in Malaysia and was nearly identical to the coronavirus discovered by the University of Florida team.

In 2021, Dr. Gregory Gray of the University of Texas Medical Branch led a team of scientists who reported the discovery of a new mutated strain, CCoV-HuPn-2018, in a hospitalized child in Malaysia. It was almost identical to the coronavirus found by the University of Florida team.

Since then, it has been documented in Thailand and Vietnam, as well as in Arkansas, which the researchers said shows this strain of canine coronavirus is already spreading across continents.

The authors cited another study they weren’t involved in that found the virus in 18 of 200 hospitalized pneumonia patients in Hanoi, Vietnam. They said that suggests a broad geographic distribution and potentially increasing prevalence. A key concern is that common clinical diagnostic tests for respiratory viruses miss this virus entirely.

What Is Influenza D?

Discovered in 2011, influenza D is most widespread in cattle and pigs but has also been found in many other livestock and wildlife species, including poultry, deer, giraffes, and kangaroos. The pathogen is believed to contribute to bovine respiratory disease, which costs the U.S. cattle industry about $1 billion a year.

The authors noted their earlier studies of people who work with cattle in Colorado and Florida found that up to 97 percent of those working with herds carry influenza D antibodies, suggesting they had been exposed to it.

And while influenza D hasn’t been associated with serious infections in humans, scientists said it bears the hallmarks of a virus primed to rapidly evolve. Indeed, they noted, a strain of the virus recently isolated in China has developed the capacity for human-to-human transmission.

What Should Happen Next?

The scientists said their discoveries about the influenza D virus and canine coronavirus underscore the lessons of the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Without readiness preparation, a quickly transmitting virus could cause a widespread human epidemic. Prevention requires better virus monitoring, reliable tests, effective treatments, and vaccines, the authors wrote. When possible, they said, surveillance efforts should be strategically focused “at the human–animal nexus where we recognize the risk is high.”

“For instance, the risk for novel swine viruses spilling over from swine to infect swine workers is exceedingly high compared with the similar risk for avian influenza viruses spilling over from poultry to infect poultry workers,” they wrote.

The researchers said their knowledge about the viruses’ epidemiology and clinical cases is limited to a modest number of research studies

“Even so, the limited data regarding these novel, newly detected viruses indicate that they are a major threat to public health,” they said.

Dr. Shahbaz Salehi, an infection prevention and control specialist at Foothill Regional Medical Center in Tustin, California, who was not involved in the study, wrote on Infection Control Today that the findings demand policy changes.

“I would recommend that public health agencies require hospitals and clinics to participate in a unified, real-time information exchange platform,” wrote Salehi, who is an editorial board member for the multimedia ICT platform and its 2024 educator of the year. “This platform would allow health care facilities to share critical operational data such as respiratory patient census, ICU capacity, staffing constraints, PPE and supply availability, and testing capability.”

Pilot projects to ensure readiness are underway in some parts of the country, but participation remains voluntary.

“Experience has shown that voluntary adoption leads to fragmented data and delayed situational awareness,” Salehi wrote, explaining that without a mandate, participation won’t be a priority due to competing operational and financial pressures.

Mandatory participation, like current reporting, would enable earlier detection of emerging respiratory threats, improve resource coordination, and allow proactive public health responses, Salehi wrote.

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