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Fig. 3 | Infectious Diseases of Poverty

Fig. 3

From: Revealing the complexity of vampire bat rabies “spillover transmission”

Fig. 3

Diagram of spillover transmission events with successful and unsuccessful virus establishment in the new host. A geographical range shift of a host species may cause contact with a novel host species. This disturbance in host species assemblages may cause transmission of viruses from the primary host to a new, naïve host, resulting in the expression of disease or death of the new host. Alternatively, the new host infected with the virus could show complete innocuity due to the incompetence of the host to interact with the novel virus. a Pathogens generally fail to successfully establish in a naïve host (orange) due to the virus removal (e.g., the immune system clears the infection or there is no cell tropism compatibility to lack of affinity with cell receptors). b Pathogens could also fail to establish in a new host due to the host’s death (e.g., pathogen kills the naïve host). Failure of the pathogen to establish in a new host, also known as ‘end hosts’ (orange), will not generate secondary transmission. c In rare spillover transmission events, pathogens successfully establish in a naïve host in the absence of pathogen’s adaptation (Pathogen does not change; i.e., pathogen’s complete genome highly conserved, without adaptative mutations. Under this scenario pathogens mainly present neutral evolution). e Alternatively, the pathogen could develop adaptation (i.e., mutations) to modulate its virulence and escape or overcome the host’s immunity or increase cell receptor affinity (Pathogen change, i.e., host-shift). Successful pathogen establishment in a naïve host, also known as ‘new host’ is the prelude for disease emergence

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