Emerging and Re-emerging Zoonotic Viruses: Current Challenges in Vaccinology

Dear Colleagues,

In this Special Issue, entitled "Emerging and Re-emerging Zoonotic Viruses: Current Challenges in Vaccinology", the focus is on infectious zoonotic diseases caused by viral pathogens—i.e., infections that are spread from people to animals or vice versa. Vertebrate animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians) may act as amplifying hosts or intermediate reservoirs and some zoonotic viruses needs a specific host to amplify the disease, limiting its ability to spread to new geographic areas, while others have a broad host range, facilitating their emergence in any part of the world. Increased urbanization encroaching on natural geographic areas facilitates the introduction of wild animals into rural and urban zones that can act as intermediate hosts or vectors. Additionally, increasingly frequent global transport of animals and people and the consequences of climate change appear to contribute to the emergence of new zoonotic diseases. In the past, the most relied upon measures to control such infectious diseases (IDs) were antibiotics, drugs, or vaccines based on inactivated or attenuated whole pathogens. Despite these measures, some pathogens have developed resistance to antibiotics and other drugs or have evolved to be able to evade the human immune system, reappearing as IDs even after the implementation of control or eradication efforts. Currently, thanks to advances in vaccinology, newly licensed vaccines have been developed that can target and control these IDs. New vaccine platforms have been based on mRNA and DNA technology, and recombinant vector platforms including nonreplicating vectors (for example, adenovirus 5 (Ad5), chimpanzee adenovirus-derived ChAdOx, highly attenuated vectors like modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA)), and live attenuated vectors (such as vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)) or reverse genetics systems. In this Special Issue, we will review new approaches to the development of vaccines against emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases.

Dr. Gema Lorenzo
Guest Editor

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• emerging zoonotic viruses
• re-emerging zoonotic viruses
• vaccine development
• viral vector
• reverse genetics systems