US-UK EEID Collab: Persistence of a highly contagious pathogen: ecological and evolutionary mechanisms in foot-and-mouth disease virus

口蹄疫（FMD）影响牲畜和野生动物，特别是非洲水牛。该病在发展中国家广泛分布，这些地区缺乏有效控制对美国和英国等发达国家构成持续威胁，由于严格的控制政策，这些国家通常不会发生该病。这种高度传染性的病毒性疾病会导致发烧和脚、乳头和口腔出现疼痛的水泡，导致跛行、产奶量下降、食欲不振和状况不佳，并对社会和经济产生重大影响。希望出口到英国和美国等高价值市场的国家需要证明完全控制了口蹄疫，因为口蹄疫扭曲了全球牲畜及其产品的贸易。例如，显然，投资于根除这种疾病的国家不希望它卷土重来；口蹄疫于2001年传入英国，控制成本超过900万美元，导致600多万头动物被屠宰。口蹄疫破坏了贸易，阻碍了对畜牧业的投资，使穷人无法进入市场，并限制了他们及其家庭未来的选择。因此，口蹄疫被认为是经济上最重要的牲畜疾病，世界动物卫生组织和联合国粮食及农业组织最近联合制定了一项全球口蹄疫控制战略。在非洲，非洲水牛是口蹄疫的天然宿主，该病毒在畜群中长期存在，水牛是牲畜、野生动物和其他水牛的感染源。我们不知道病毒是如何在水牛种群中维持的，也不知道病毒是如何从水牛传播到其他动物的。此外，用于保护牛的疫苗对存在于水牛身上的病毒类型不是很有效，这些病毒种类繁多，不断变异和变化。这种情况在发展中国家造成了需要有效畜牧业生产系统以减轻贫困的畜牧业生产者与试图保护野生动物种群和生态系统的保护主义者之间的摩擦。该项目的目的是确定口蹄疫病毒在水牛种群中持续存在的主要机制，并了解病毒如何在水牛种群中不断发生突变和变化。除非我们了解这些机制，否则全球消灭或控制口蹄疫将永远无法实现。了解年际持续性对于确定低风险低谷具有非常宝贵的价值，可以利用这些低谷为牲畜种群制定有效的干预和控制战略。我们的发现将扩展到整个非洲的水牛种群。了解病毒如何在水牛体内维持并传播给易感动物，将使我们能够开发更好的牲畜疫苗和控制政策，以支持非洲的经济发展和保护野生动物。

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects livestock and wild animals, African buffalo especially. The disease is widely distributed in the developing world and the lack of effective control in these territories is a constant threat to developed countries like the USA and UK where the disease does not normally occur due to rigid control policies. This highly contagious viral disease causes a fever and painful blisters on the feet, teats and in the mouth, leading to lameness, a drop in milk production, loss of appetite and condition and significant social and economic impact. Countries that want to export to high value markets like the UK and USA need to demonstrate total control of FMD, as a consequence FMD distorts the global trade of livestock and their products. Clearly, countries who have invested in eradicating the disease do not want it back, for example; introduction of FMD into the UK in 2001 cost over US$ 9 million to control and resulted in the slaughter of over 6 million animals. FMD undermines trade, impedes investment in the livestock sector, stops poor people having access to markets and limits options for their future and the future of their families. As a consequence, FMD is considered to be the most economically important disease of livestock and the World Health Organisation for Animal Health and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations have recently joined forces to establish a strategy for global FMD control.In Africa, African buffalo are the natural reservoir host for FMD, the virus is maintained in herds for long periods of time and buffalo act as a source of infection for livestock, wildlife and other buffalo. We do not understand how the virus is maintained in buffalo populations or how the virus is transmitted from buffalo, to other animals. In addition, vaccines used to protect cattle are not very effective for the types of viruses present in buffalo, which are diverse and constantly mutating and changing. This situation creates friction in developing countries between the livestock producers, with a need for efficient livestock production systems to alleviate poverty, and conservationists trying to preserve wildlife populations and ecosystems. The aim of this project is to determine the primary mechanism of FMD virus persistence in buffalo populations and understand how the virus constantly undergoes mutation and change in buffalo populations. Global FMD eradication, or control, will never be achieved unless we understand these mechanisms. Understanding inter-annual persistence will be invaluable for identifying troughs of low risk that can be exploited as a time for effective intervention and control strategies for livestock populations. Our findings will be scalable to buffalo populations throughout Africa. Understanding how virus is maintained in buffalo and transmitted to susceptible animals will allow us to develop better livestock vaccines and control policies to support economic development and preserve wildlife in Africa.