Special Issue: Emerging Wildlife Viral Diseases

The past several decades have seen the emergences of novel viral infectious diseases increase steadily in wildlife populations globally. Emerging viral diseases are acknowledged as an apparently growing trend of threats to wildlife and act as the source of a series of high-impact diseases recently emerging as pathogens affecting humans. Most emerging viral pathogens, including Ebola and Marburg virus, human immunodeficiency virus virus-1 and -2, Nipah, Sin Nombre virus, Hendra and Menangle virus, West Nile virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and different subtypes of avian influenza, originate in wildlife and spill over into human hosts due to a range of ecological, demographic, and socio-economic changes. Diseases caused by viruses, recently exemplified by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) to human populations, also threaten wild animals from amphibians to mammals. Habitat destructions, pollution, and international trade are among the factors contributing to a growing opportunity for viruses to spread to new hosts and cause disease.