Olayemi Ayodeji, Fichet-Calvet Elisabeth
Natural History Museum, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife HO220005, Nigeria.
Department of Virology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, 20359 Hamburg, Germany.
Viruses. 2020 Mar 14;12(3):312. doi: 10.3390/v12030312.
Ever since it was established that rodents serve as reservoirs of the zoonotic Lassa virus (LASV), scientists have sought to answer the questions: which populations of rodents carry the virus? How do fluctuations in LASV prevalence and rodent abundance influence Lassa fever outbreaks in humans? What does it take for the virus to adopt additional rodent hosts, proliferating what already are devastating cycles of rodent-to-human transmission? In this review, we examine key aspects of research involving the biology of rodents that affect their role as LASV reservoirs, including phylogeography, demography, virus evolution, and host switching. We discuss how this knowledge can help control Lassa fever and suggest further areas for investigation.
自从确定啮齿动物是人畜共患拉沙病毒（LASV）的宿主以来，科学家们一直在寻求回答以下问题：哪些啮齿动物种群携带这种病毒？LASV流行率和啮齿动物数量的波动如何影响人类拉沙热疫情？病毒要具备什么条件才能感染其他啮齿动物宿主，从而加剧已经具有毁灭性的啮齿动物到人类的传播循环？在这篇综述中，我们研究了涉及啮齿动物生物学的关键研究方面，这些方面影响它们作为LASV宿主的作用，包括系统地理学、种群统计学、病毒进化和宿主转换。我们讨论了这些知识如何有助于控制拉沙热，并提出了进一步的研究领域。
