Sentinel Chickens

At the heart of this book by Nobel Prize–winning immunologist and professor Peter Doherty is this striking observation: Birds detect danger to our health and the environment before we do. Following a diverse cast of bird species around the world—from tufted puffins in Puget Sound to griffon vultures in India, pigeons in East Asia, and wedge-tailed shearwaters off the islands of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—Doherty illuminates birds’ role as an early warning system for threats to the health of our planet and our own well-being.Their Fate Is Our Fate is an impassioned call not only to attention but to action. As “citizen scientists” we can collect data, vital to cutting-edge research, that depends on the birds that are all around us. Armed with our observations, scientists will continue to uncover new ways to glimpse our future in birds—and to affirm how, truly, their fate is our fate.

Viruses are widely present in nature, and numerous viral species with a variety of unique characteristics have been identified so far. Even now, new emerging or re-emerging viruses are being found or re-found as novel viral classes or as quasi-species. Indeed, viruses are everywhere. Of note, viruses are pivotal as targets and tools of basic and applied sciences. On one hand, portions of the viruses are infectious for animals including humans, and cause various diseases in infected hosts by distinct mechanisms and at a different level of severity. While many of viruses are known to co-exist quietly with their hosts, pathogenic viruses certainly affect and threaten our society as well as individuals to provoke serious medical or economic attention. We should act against certain dreadful and highly infectious viruses as a global problem. Animal RNA viruses can readily mutate to adapt themselves in their hostile environments for their survival. Resultant viruses may sometimes show essentially altered phenotypes from the original parental strains. This fundamental and general property of animal RNA viruses represents major extensive issues of scientific, medical, and/or economic importance. In this Research Topic, we have focused on the high mutability of animal RNA viruses, and selected relevant articles on animal viruses of broad-ranges such as primate lentiviruses, influenza viruses, paramyxoviruses, flaviviruses, rabies virus, norovirus, picornaviruses, and picobirnavirus. Each article has taken up intriguing aspects of the subject viruses. We are sure that readers acquire important information on virus mutation, adaptation, diversification, and evolution, and hope that researchers in the field related to virology gain some solid hints from the reported articles for further virological and /or medical studies. Finally, we thank all the contributing researchers in this Research Topic, entitled “Highly Mutable Animal RNA Viruses: Adaptation and Evolution”, for their elegant and interesting works.

Avian Influenza poses a looming threat for human and animal health. The old paradigm was that the disease in waterfowl, poultry, pigs and man was caused by separate viruses that stayed within their own niche. Deadly outbreaks have shattered this view. This timely reference examines such sensitive issues as regulation of low pathogenic and high pathogenic AI, surveillance of waterfowl, live bird markets, and outbreak control in densely populated areas.

After experiencing the SARS outbreak in 2003, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all invested in various techniques to mitigate future pandemics involving myriad cross-species interactions between humans and birds. In some locations microbiologists allied with veterinarians and birdwatchers to follow the mutations of flu viruses in birds and humans and create preparedness strategies, while in others, public health officials worked toward preventing pandemics by killing thousands of birds. In Avian Reservoirs Frédéric Keck offers a comparative analysis of these responses, tracing how the anticipation of bird flu pandemics has changed relations between birds and humans in China. Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnographic fieldwork, Keck demonstrates that varied strategies dealing with the threat of pandemics—stockpiling vaccines and samples in Taiwan, simulating pandemics in Singapore, and monitoring viruses and disease vectors in Hong Kong—reflect local geopolitical relations to mainland China. In outlining how interactions among pathogens, birds, and humans shape the way people imagine future pandemics, Keck illuminates how interspecies relations are crucial for protecting against such threats.

Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain tissue associated with clinical evidence of brain dysfunction. The disease is of high public health importance worldwide due to its high morbidity and mortality. Flaviviruses, such as tick-borne encephalitis virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, Murray Valley encephalitis virus, or St. Louis encephalitis virus, represent important causative agents of encephalitis in humans in various parts of the world. The book Flavivirus Encephalitis provides the most recent information about selected aspects associated with encephalitic flaviviruses. The book contains chapters that cover a wide spectrum of subjects including flavivirus biology, virus-host interactions, role of vectors in disease epidemiology, neurological dengue, and West Nile encephalitis. Special attention is paid to tick-borne encephalitis and Japanese encephalitis viruses. The book uniquely combines up-to-date reviews with cutting-edge original research data, and provides a condensed source of information for clinicians, virologists, pathologists, immunologists, as well as for students of medicine or life sciences.

Overall, the negative health impacts of global climate change are anticipated to significantly outweigh positive impacts. Furthermore, global climate change will continue for decades, even after the effective implementation of mitigation measures. By exploring cases in public health and prior lessons learned, this valuable title identifies the key adjustments necessary for public health systems to effectively adapt to this inevitable climate change. Touching on broader aspects of integrated assessment and environmental studies as well as climatic alterations and public health, this book is an essential resource for those involved in these fields at all levels.

This book primarily focuses on the African Sahel region, shedding new light on the epidemiology, socio-economics, clinical manifestations and control approaches of transboundary animal diseases (TADs) in this specific region. In addition to the description of TADs in Sahelian Africa and connected regions, several issues regarding the burden of TADs, the role of national/regional/international veterinary organizations in the surveillance process, animal mobility, one health and TADs in the dromedary are discussed. The book contains 22 chapters and is structured in three parts, i- general features and commonalities, ii- viral diseases, iii- bacterial diseases. Each chapter was written by a group of experts specialized in the topic. This work will be of general interest to researchers, veterinarians, veterinary public health officers, and students engaged in the surveillance and control of animal infectious diseases, included those of zoonotic nature and that are prevalent in the Sahel.