Emerging and Reemerging Zoonotic Diseases: From Past Lessons to Future Preparedness

Dear Colleagues,

Zoonosis denotes any disease or infection naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans. Notably, its hazards are being amplified by global ecological upheaval. Pathogens that once circulated quietly in wildlife reservoirs now breach species barriers with accelerating frequency, propelled by climate shifts, habitat fragmentation, and intensified livestock production. The resultant outbreaks—ranging from the Black Death and 1918 influenza to Ebola, SARS-CoV-2, and avian H5N1—have repeatedly reshaped societies, economies, and ecosystems. These events demonstrate that zoonotic threats are not isolated biomedical curiosities but systemic crises at the intersection of environment, animal health, and human behavior. Their impacts extend beyond acute morbidity and mortality to encompass supply-chain disruptions, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and widening health inequities. Understanding zoonosis therefore requires a transdisciplinary lens that recognizes pathogens as both biological entities and products of socio-ecological networks.

This Special Issue, “Emerging and Reemerging Zoonotic Diseases: From Past Lessons to Future Preparedness,” interrogates these networks across historical, contemporary, and predictive dimensions. We invite research that deciphers past spillover events through archaeological, archival, and genomic reconstructions; elucidates molecular mechanisms driving host jumps; maps land-use and climate drivers of current hotspots; and evaluates One Health governance, AI-driven surveillance, and vaccine innovations. By integrating virology, ecology, veterinary science, social sciences, and Indigenous knowledge, the collection aims to translate retrospective insight into anticipatory, equitable, and climate-resilient strategies that safeguard both human and planetary health.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Paleopathogenomics of zoonotic spillover: archaeogenetic reconstruction of historical cross-species transmissions.
• Virome characterization and biosafety assessment of ancient zoonotic agents.
• Land-use change and spillover hotspots.
• Host-jumping mechanisms of priority viruses (e.g., henipaviruses, coronaviruses).
• Urban bats/rodents as reemerging disease reservoirs.
• Vectors for transmission and its competence, ecology, genetics and resistance to insecticide.
• AMR genes in livestock-to-human zoonotic transmission.
• Climate-induced expansion of arthropod-borne zoonoses.
• Wastewater-based epidemiology for early zoonotic detection.
• Pandemic potential of drug-resistant zoonotic bacteria.
• Integrating Indigenous knowledge in One Health surveillance.
• Economic drivers of zoonotic reemergence (e.g., bushmeat trade).
• Vaccine development for climate-sensitive zoonoses.
• AI/ML tools for forecasting spillover risk.
• Case studies: Success/failure in containing reemerging zoonoses (e.g., Ebola, Lyme).

Dr. Xinyu Feng
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• zoonotic spillover
• one health
• climate change & land-use
• genomic surveillance
• AI-driven early warning