Environmental spillover of emerging viruses: Is it true?
Environ Res
; 233: 116416, 2023 09 15.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37321337
ABSTRACT
The concept of environmental "spillover" of pathogens to humans is widely used in the scientific literature about emerging diseases with the idea that it is scientifically proven. However, the exact characterization of the mechanism of spillover is simply lacking. A systematic review retrieved 688 articles using this term. The systematic analysis revealed an irreducible polysemy covering ten different definitions. It also demonstrated the absence of explicit definition in most of the articles, and even antinomies. A modeling analysis of the various processes described by these ten definitions showed that none of them corresponded to the complete trajectory leading to the emergence of a disease. There is no article demonstrating a mechanism of spillover. There are only ten articles proposing ideas on how a putative spillover could work but they merely are intellectual constructions. All other articles only reuse the term with no demonstration. It is essential to understand that since there is no scientific concept behind the "spillover", it might be dangerous to base public health and public protection against future pandemics on it.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Vírus
/
Doenças Transmissíveis Emergentes
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
/
Systematic_reviews
Limite:
Animals
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article