Extremely contagious pathogens are a global biosecurity threat because of their high burden of morbidity and mortality, as well as their capacity for fast-moving epidemics that are difficult to quell. Understanding the mechanisms enabling persistence of highly transmissible pathogens in host populations is thus a central problem in disease ecology. Through a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches, we investigated how highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease viruses persist in the African buffalo, which serves as their wildlife reservoir. We found that viral persistence through transmission among acutely infected hosts alone is unlikely. However, the inclusion of occasional transmission from persistently infected carriers reliably rescues the most infectious viral strain from fade-out. Additional mechanisms such as antigenic shift, loss of immunity, or spillover among host populations may be required for persistence of less transmissible strains.

中文翻译：

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高度传染性病原体的地方性持续存在：野生动物宿主中的口蹄疫

极具传染性的病原体是全球生物安全的威胁，因为它们具有高发病率和死亡率的负担，以及它们传播速度快且难以遏制的流行病的能力。因此，了解使宿主种群中高度传染性病原体持续存在的机制是疾病生态学的核心问题。通过结合实验和理论方法，我们研究了高度传染性口蹄疫病毒如何在非洲水牛体内持续存在，非洲水牛是它们的野生动物宿主。我们发现病毒不太可能仅通过急性感染宿主之间的传播而持久存在。然而，包括来自持续感染携带者的偶尔传播可靠地挽救了最具传染性的病毒株免于淡出。其他机制，如抗原转移，