Virus families most likely to emerge as next Disease X with pandemic potential

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and University of California (U.C.), Davis, United States (U.S.) yesterday announced a new partnership agreement to advance and expand the application of ‘SpillOver, a viral ranking app that directly compares the risks posed by hundreds of animal and human viruses.

CEPI, in a statement yesterday, said the database ranks hundreds of virus, host, and environmental risk factors to identify viruses with the highest risk of zoonotic spillover from wildlife to humans and to highlight those most likely to spread and cause human outbreaks.

CEPI said it will provide up to US$1.76 million in funding to take the ‘SpillOver’ app to the next level, identifying and expanding its database to include new risk factors for disease spillover, like viruses that infect domesticated animals and viruses harboured by reptiles and amphibians. Researchers at the UC Davis One Health Institute will also pioneer a new system, using artificial intelligence, which is capable of parsing multiple sources in search of these viral data, to enable automated updates.

Executive Director of Vaccine Research and Development, CEPI, Dr. Melanie Saville, said: “CEPI’s plan is to help the world construct a library of vaccines that are ready to be adapted against the next Disease X, within 100 days of its identification. Our partnership with UC Davis will help us home in on those viral families that not only pose the greatest risk of spillover but are also most likely to spread between people and cause disease and death.”

UC Davis researchers developed the SpillOver platform, an open database, using data from 509,721 samples taken from 74,635 animals in 28 countries and public records as part of a virus discovery project. These data were then used to rank the spillover potential (that is, the risk of a virus jumping from animals to people) of 887 wildlife viruses.

Their most recent findings—based on over 30 risk factors—show Lassa virus ranking as the highest risk pathogen after SARS-CoV-2. There are no licenced vaccines or treatments for Lassa fever, but CEPI is supporting the development of six Lassa vaccine candidates and it is supporting the largest ever study, the Enable study, to assess the epidemiology and burden of diseases in West Africa.

Principal investigator and distinguished professor of epidemiology and disease ecology at UC Davis, Jonna Mazet, said: “Together we will use cutting-edge methods to dramatically increase the amount of virus data available for risk ranking. This is a critical step forward in streamlining vaccine pipelines with the power to revolutionise epidemic and pandemic preparedness.”