Marc A. Suchard

2 months ago | nature.com | Serina Chang |Samantha Vanderslott |Elizaveta Semenova |Oliver Watson |Abhishek Dasgupta |Samuel V. Scarpino | +14 more

AbstractInfectious disease threats to individual and public health are numerous, varied and frequently unexpected. Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies, which are already supporting human decision making in economics, medicine and social science, have the potential to transform the scope and power of infectious disease epidemiology.

Sep 4, 2024 | nature.com | Jin Zhao |Kang Yu |Philippe Lemey |John H.-O. Pettersson |Yuhai Bi |Meng Lu | +13 more

Animals such as raccoon dogs, mink and muskrats are farmed for fur and are sometimes used as food or medicinal products1,2, yet they are also potential reservoirs of emerging pathogens3. Here we performed single-sample metatranscriptomic sequencing of internal tissues from 461 individual fur animals that were found dead due to disease. We characterized 125 virus species, including 36 that were novel and 39 at potentially high risk of cross-species transmission, including zoonotic spillover. Notably, we identified seven species of coronaviruses, expanding their known host range, and documented the cross-species transmission of a novel canine respiratory coronavirus to raccoon dogs and of bat HKU5-like coronaviruses to mink, present at a high abundance in lung tissues. Three subtypes of influenza A virus—H1N2, H5N6 and H6N2—were detected in the lungs of guinea pig, mink and muskrat, respectively. Multiple known zoonotic viruses, such as Japanese encephalitis virus and mammalian orthoreovirus4,5, were detected in guinea pigs. Raccoon dogs and mink carried the highest number of potentially high-risk viruses, while viruses from the Coronaviridae, Paramyxoviridae and Sedoreoviridae families commonly infected multiple hosts. These data also reveal potential virus transmission between farmed animals and wild animals, and from humans to farmed animals, indicating that fur farming represents an important transmission hub for viral zoonoses. Fur farming represents an important hub of cross-species transmission for viral zoonoses.

Mar 19, 2024 | onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Tara Anand |Fan Bu |Martijn J Schuemie |Marc A. Suchard

1 BACKGROUND Current guidance for specific first-line antihypertensive medication is limited, based largely on expert opinion due to lacking clinical trials comparing various medications and drug classes.1 Previously, Suchard et al.2 generated hazard ratios (HR) comparing risks for new initiators of different drug classes for various safety and effectiveness outcomes with evidence demonstrating better primary effectiveness and safety for the class of thiazides and thiazide-like diuretics,...