LONDON, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Different epidemic waves are brought about by different variants of SARS-CoV-2. The major sources of these variants can travel cross border and exist in animal reservoirs, an article has said.
The article published this week on News Medical, an open-access medical and life science hub, showed a bell-shaped curve, which is typical of a seasonal viral respiratory infection, was observed in Asia. Comparatively, the bell-shaped curve recorded in Western countries experienced one or two peaks.
Citing a recent study published in the pre-print server medRxiv, the article revealed role of globalization and zoonosis in the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants.
The results of the current study indicate that countries that are isolated either geographically or politically faced only one epidemic episode and thus had a single bell-shaped curve. Whereas in Europe and the United States, several epidemics were found to occur successively involving different viral variants.
The study also found that the role of epizootics in animal herds was not considered in the generation of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and their transmission to humans. Minks were found to play a major role in the expansion of the pandemic.
Thus, controlling the borders efficiently and regular surveillance of animal farms can help reduce the incidence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and the occurrence of new epidemics, the authors concluded in the article.
