Pathogen Plasticity Project

A study published today in the International Journal of Primatology and led by the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis, confirms living Skywalker gibbons in Myanmar. It was the endangered primate’s love songs that alerted scientists that their home extends beyond China and that Myanmar has the largest population of endangered Skywalker gibbons on Earth.

While SARS-CoV-2 has been the focus of everyone’s attention since December of 2019 and continues to impact people’s health around the world, coronaviruses are not a new concern to those studying and responding to emerging diseases and outbreaks. Prior to the pandemic, outbreaks caused by coronaviruses, such as MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-1, presented threats to public health and safety.

Last week, Dr. Christine K. Johnson, Professor and Director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics, spoke as an expert panelist at the "Shared Decision-Making: A Catalyst for Real-World Research Solutions" event.

A virus previously found only in bats was detected in the antibodies of people screened for exposure to sarbecoviruses between 2017 and 2020 in rural Myanmar in Southeast Asia, according to a study from the University of California, Davis and collaborators in Myanmar and Singapore. The work is published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.