key: cord-0780146-rnx6upv0
authors: Zhai, Shao-Lun
title: Editorial: The Belt and Road of Animal Diseases
date: 2021-11-08
journal: Front Vet Sci
DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2021.795556
sha: 6a7c7400e3b5bf8288f0103d2846f2031670bb61
doc_id: 780146
cord_uid: rnx6upv0

nan

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013. This investment and infrastructure development strategy drives the world's economic development. However, this initiative has resulted in an increase in the transnational spread of animal diseases, which caused a significant economic loss to the global animal industry. For example, in 2013, Peste des petits ruminant virus entered China (1); in 2015, Senecavirus A outbreak occurred in China (2) ; since 2018, African swine fever virus swept into east Asia and Southeast Asia (3); in 2019; lumpy skin disease virus emerged in China (4); in 2013, Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea was found in the United States (5). Strategies to avoid or reduce transnational spread of animal infectious diseases is an important issue, which can be addressed by a multidisciplinary approach including rapid virus detection, metagenomic sequencing, and epidemiology. Other measures such as scientific popularization of disease knowledge, combating smuggling activities, border trade control, and wildlife management should facilitate the control and prevention of these rapidly evolving infectious diseases of animals in a timely and effective manner.

The aim of this Research Topic is to offer an opportunity to collect the newest research and development in the field of "The Belt and Road" of Animal Diseases. Early warning, virus detection, genetic evolution, disseminating disease knowledge, combating smuggling activities, border trade control (among others) are topics that we aim to explore.

In this Research Topic, we received 16 manuscripts, 11 (1 review, 9 original research, 1 brief research report) were accepted for publication. Among them, 9 papers involved virus research, and two papers involved bacterial research. In 9 viral topic-related papers, 5 papers involved nidovirus research; 2 papers involved circovirus research; one paper involved herpesvirus research; one paper focused on picornavirus research. The first nidovirus paper reported the genetic diversity In two bacterial studies, Liu et al. collected genotype data of Brucella strains from 11 countries along the Silk Road, the combination of whole-genome sequencing and single-nucleotide polymorphism (WGS-SNP) phylogenetic analysis showed that some genotypes spread within the national borders and other genotypes continuously expanded and spread in countries along with Silk Road. The authors strengthen that there is an urgent need for the control (especially entry-exit quarantine of animal brucellosis) of transfer and trade of infected sheep/goats in countries along the Silk Road. Li et al. reported the host cytokine response differences in piglets infected with toxigenic and nontoxigenic staphylococcus hyicus (S. hyicus) It was helpful to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of S. hyicus.

Since the beginning of 2020, The Research Topic began to receive the manuscript submission, and invited more than 60 research team from the world to submit the manuscript. But we finally received 16 manuscripts that might be caused on on-going COVID-19 pandemic, which clearly affects our research and work progress. Although the Topic provides overviews of some pathogen cross-region threats and discusses current and novel strategies for the detection and control, the manuscripts associated with transboundary infectious diseases and foreign diseases (especially Peste des petits ruminant, African swine fever and lumpy skin disease) were lacking. In the following work, we hope that more scientists pay more attention to these diseases in order to reduce or prevent the spread of transboundary infectious diseases and foreign diseases in animals.

S-LZ wrote the editorial and approved it for publication. 

Complete genome sequence of a novel variant strain of peste des petits ruminants virus

The first identification and complete genome of senecavirus a affecting pig with idiopathic vesicular disease in China

African swine fever spread across Asia

Threat of lumpy skin disease to the Chinese cattle industry

Emergence of severe porcine epidemic diarrhoea in pigs in the USA

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.Publisher's Note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.Copyright © 2021 Zhai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.