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Although numerous tick-borne viruses are seemingly apathogenic in humans, a number of emerging tick-borne viruses have been recently identified to possess human-infection potential, with more yet to be discovered. Here, we call for greater research efforts to better delineate their precise disease burden and threats posed to global public health.
Sewage surveillance could provide information on the resistance situation in the underlying population and on environmental transmission risks. There are opportunities to make such surveillance data more informative and actionable, but there are also challenges.
Global COVID-19 vaccine equity remains aspirational for much of the world. But the emergence of rapidly evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants provides new opportunities to correct past public policies, support local vaccine production and combat rising anti-vaccine aggression.
The biofilm community has historically been very successful in aggregating scientists from very diverse fields. Now, we must harness innovative technologies across disciplines to illuminate the biofilm microenvironment and create in vitro models that accurately recapitulate natural environments.
The ongoing monkeypox outbreak in non-endemic countries is likely to be a consequence of the failure to curtail the spread of the disease in endemic regions of Africa despite decades of constant outbreaks. A globally driven one health approach to prevention and treatment of the disease is essential to control present and future outbreaks.
The comparatively milder infections with the Omicron variant and higher levels of population immunity have raised hopes for a weakening of the pandemic. We argue that the lower severity of Omicron is a coincidence and that ongoing rapid antigenic evolution is likely to produce new variants that may escape immunity and be more severe.
The magnitude of immune evasion of Omicron raises the question whether it should be considered as a distinct SARS-CoV-2 serotype. Here, we discuss lines of evidence in support or against the concept of SARS-CoV-2 serotypes, and the implications of this classification.
The International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) has recently altered long-standing phylum names and given no guidance for taxonomy of uncultured or imperfectly cultured archaea and bacteria, disrupting progress towards a universal system of microbial taxonomy. Inclusion of new members into ICSP may help it to keep up to date.
