Mice have been thought to be carriers of the disease since at least the time of the plague, but new research shows that rodents and other animals in the city are actually less likely to cause the next pandemic than previously thought.
His researchers Georgetown University in Washington studied data on nearly 3,000 mammals, waiting to find that those living in urban areas have more viruses that can be transmitted to humans.
They did find that animals in urban environments certainly had ten times as many diseases, but this may be due to the methodology used: these mice were 100 times more likely to be studied than mice in the open.
Once this methodology was corrected, the researchers were surprised to find that mice were less likely to cause a new disease than other animals.
However, “it is not a good idea to get too close to the urban fauna,” said Greg Albery, who led the study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
“These urban animals are unlikely to be the cause of the next ‘X disease’, but they often remain the cause of known serious illnesses,” he told AFP, citing the example of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease commonly transmitted by mice.
“Because we have been studying animals living in cities for a long time, we know so much about their parasites that there are very few that are unknown. Outdoor fauna is much more unknown and more likely to pose the next big threat,” he said. .
However, people who are in regular contact with mice should be described as “disease sponges,” said Jonathan Richardson, a professor of Urban Ecology at University of Richmond.
Albury and co-author of the study, Colin Carlson, published research last week showing that climate change could increase the risk of new epidemics.
They found that when animals such as bats leave for cooler areas, they mix with other species for the first time and create new opportunities for diseases that can later infect humans.
According to Albury, mammals in urban environments such as mice can play a role in this process.
His research on global warming has also shown that new opportunities for viruses to pass from one animal to another will now appear closer to residential areas than to forests.
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