Wolfe N D, Escalante A A, Karesh W B, Kilbourn A, Spielman A, Lal A A
Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Emerg Infect Dis. 1998 Apr-Jun;4(2):149-58. doi: 10.3201/eid0402.980202.
Wild primate populations, an unexplored source of information regarding emerging infectious disease, may hold valuable clues to the origins and evolution of some important pathogens. Primates can act as reservoirs for human pathogens. As members of biologically diverse habitats, they serve as sentinels for surveillance of emerging pathogens and provide models for basic research on natural transmission dynamics. Since emerging infectious diseases also pose serious threats to endangered and threatened primate species, studies of these diseases in primate populations can benefit conservation efforts and may provide the missing link between laboratory studies and the well-recognized needs of early disease detection, identification, and surveillance.
野生灵长类种群是有关新出现传染病的未被探索的信息来源，可能为一些重要病原体的起源和进化提供有价值的线索。灵长类动物可以作为人类病原体的宿主。作为生物多样性栖息地的成员，它们充当新兴病原体监测的哨兵，并为自然传播动态的基础研究提供模型。由于新出现的传染病也对濒危和受威胁的灵长类物种构成严重威胁，对灵长类种群中这些疾病的研究可以有益于保护工作，并可能提供实验室研究与早期疾病检测、识别和监测的公认需求之间缺失的环节。
