Battling Zoonotic Spillover

Problem

Can we prevent potential spillback of SARS-CoV-2 from wild animals to humans?

• The global spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans) poses risks for spillover transmission to nonhuman hosts, which could in turn act as reservoirs for the virus, and potentially "spillback" to human hosts.

Findings

A team of researchers reported the first direct evidence of SARS-CoV-2 virus in any free-living species when they discovered that more than 80 percent of the white-tailed deer sampled in different parts of Iowa between December 2020 and January 2021 tested positive for the virus.

• The team examined nearly 300 samples collected as a part of a routine health surveillance program in Iowa, finding several different SARS-CoV-2 lineages circulating within geographically confined herds. This research suggested the occurrence of multiple independent spillover events from humans to deer, followed by local deer-to-deer transmission.

Impact

This discovery highlights the urgent need to support and sustain a robust and proactive "one health" approach that includes surveillance programs to monitor the spread of SARS-CoV-2 within deer and other susceptible wildlife species in the battle against the long-term persistence and evolution of this coronavirus.

• A better understanding of the ecology, molecular evolution, and spread of SARS-CoV-2 will help scientists and public health officials to predict and even prevent the emergence of future infectious diseases with pandemic and spillover potential.

Research Credit

Team

• Suresh V. Kuchipudi , Meera Surendran-Nair, Rachel M. Ruden, Michele Yon , Ruth H. Nissly , Kurt J. Vandegrift, Rahul K. Nelli, Lingling Li , Bhushan M. Jayarao , Costas D. Maranas, Nicole Levine, Katriina Willgert, Andrew J.K. Conlan, Randall J. Olsen, James J. Davis, James M. Musser, Peter J. Hudson, Vivek Kapur

Participating Departments

• Animal Science
• Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences

Partners

• Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
• Penn State Eberly College of Sciences
• Iowa State University
• Penn State College of Engineering
• University of Cambridge
• Weill Cornell Medical College
• Argonne National Laboratory
• Houston Methodist Research Institute
• Houston Methodist Hospital

Competitive Funding

• USDA NIFA (AFRI)
• US Fish and Wildlife Service (Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program)
• Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences
• Iowa DNR (Fish and Game Protection Fund)
• Houston Methodist Academic Institute (Infectious Diseases Fund)
• National Institutes of Health
• NSF (Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Program)

Federal and State Appropriations

• USDA NIFA Hatch Project PEN04748, Accession # 1023391

News Story

Deer may be reservoir for SARS-CoV-2, study finds

November 03, 2021

More than 80% of the white-tailed deer sampled in different parts of Iowa between December 2020 and January 2021 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The findings suggest that white-tailed deer may be a reservoir for the virus to continually circulate and raise concerns of emergence of new strains that may prove a threat to wildlife and, possibly, to humans.

Published Research

Multiple spillovers from humans and onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer.

• Kuchipudi, S. V., Surendran-Nair, M., Ruden, R. M., Yon, M., Nissly, R. H., Vandegrift, K. J., Nelli, R. K., Li, L., Jayarao, B. M., Maranas, C. D., Levine, N., Willgert, K., Conlan, A. J. K., Olsen, R. J., Davis, J. J., Musser, J. M., Hudson, P. J., & Kapur, V. (2022). Multiple spillovers from humans and onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(6), [e2121644119]. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2121644119