Preprint Review Version 3 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Assessing the Risks of SARS-CoV-2 in Wildlife

Richard Delahay
* ,
Jose de la Fuente
,
Graham Smith
ORCID logo ,
Khan Sharun
ORCID logo ,
Emma Snary
,
Luis Flores Giron
,
Julius Nziza
,
Anthony Fooks
ORCID logo ,
Sharon Brookes
ORCID logo ,
Fabian Lean
ORCID logo ,
Andrew Breed
,
Christian Gortazar
Version 1 : Received: 9 December 2020 / Approved: 11 December 2020 / Online: 11 December 2020 (14:16:28 CET)
Version 2 : Received: 23 December 2020 / Approved: 24 December 2020 / Online: 24 December 2020 (09:20:20 CET)
Version 3 : Received: 23 March 2021 / Approved: 26 March 2021 / Online: 26 March 2021 (10:25:36 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Delahay, R.J., de la Fuente, J., Smith, G.C. et al. Assessing the risks of SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife. One Health Outlook 3, 7 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42522-021-00039-6 Delahay, R.J., de la Fuente, J., Smith, G.C. et al. Assessing the risks of SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife. One Health Outlook 3, 7 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42522-021-00039-6

Abstract

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 likely emerged from a wildlife source with transmission to humans followed by rapid geographic spread throughout the globe and severe impacts on both human health and the global economy. Since the onset of the pandemic, there have been many instances of human-to-animal transmission involving companion, farmed and zoo animals, and limited evidence for spread into free-living wildlife. The establishment of reservoirs of infection in wild animals would create significant challenges to infection control in humans and could pose a threat to the welfare and conservation status of wildlife. We discuss the potential for exposure, onward transmission and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in an initial selection of wild mammals (bats, canids, felids, mustelids, great apes, rodents and cervids). Dynamic risk assessment and targeted surveillance are important tools for the early detection of infection in wildlife, and here we describe a framework for collating and synthesising emerging information to inform targeted surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife. Surveillance efforts should be integrated with information from public and veterinary health initiatives to provide insights into the potential role of wild mammals in the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords

SARS-CoV-2; Covid-19; wildlife; host-switching; reservoirs; risk assessment; surveillance

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Zoology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Comments (1)

Comment 1
Received: 26 March 2021
Commenter: Richard Delahay
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: Author
Comment: Updated to include recently emerged evidence on susceptible mammals.  Now includes more detailed description of approaches for surveillance of wildlife for SARS-CoV-2 and a new figure illustrating the broad process of collating evidence to inform surveillance.
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