From One Health Surveillance to Mpox and Prions: New Research Tracks the Rise of Emerging Diseases

A sweeping new collection of studies published in Frontiers in Tropical Diseases is offering a multidimensional view of how infectious diseases emerge, re-emerge, and ripple across ecosystems, economies, and public health systems. The research topic, titled “Exploring the Dynamics of Emerging and Re-Emerging Diseases: From Origins to Impact, Volume II,” brings together work spanning tropical disease surveillance, molecular diagnostics, arboviral outbreaks, SARS-CoV-2 reinfection, prion disease, and Mpox-HIV co-infection, painting a picture of a world where the boundaries between human, animal, and environmental health are increasingly porous.

At the heart of the collection is a call to rethink how the world detects and responds to disease threats before they spiral into crises. A review by Abdulsalam and colleagues argues that effective surveillance under a “One Health” framework must be proactive rather than reactive, incorporating climate intelligence and addressing the behavioral and social drivers of disease. The authors emphasize that technologies such as artificial intelligence, genomic sequencing, environmental biosensors, and mobile health platforms are dramatically enhancing the speed and scalability of detection, response, and prevention of cross-species transmission. They also stress the need for interdisciplinary education, policy support, and real-time data sharing to build system-wide resilience, recommending that local communities be involved in shaping context-specific surveillance strategies in ecologically sensitive tropical regions.

Complementing this systems-level perspective, a study by Iqrar and colleagues developed and validated a novel multiplex PCR assay capable of simultaneously detecting Anaplasma, Babesia, and Theileria pathogens at the genus level in captive wild ungulates. The researchers designed primer pairs targeting the 18S ribosomal RNA gene for piroplasmids, generating products of 178 base pairs for Theileria and 479 base pairs for Babesia, while a separate primer pair targeting the 16S rRNA gene produced an expected 318 base pair product for Anaplasma. Testing blood samples from 60 captive Gazella bennettii and Axis porcinus across wildlife parks and zoos in Punjab, Pakistan, the team found an overall hemoparasite prevalence of 66.66 percent, with sequencing confirming the results and offering a valuable complementary tool for routine, accurate detection in endangered species.

The collection also ventures into the unsettling territory of prion diseases. A clinical case report by Kotkowski and colleagues details the evaluation of a 72-year-old hunter who developed progressive rapid dementia and startle myoclonus after extensive exposure to cervids in a chronic wasting disease-endemic region. During hospitalization, the patient developed posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, and magnetic resonance imaging revealed cortical ribboning and diffusion restriction in the basal ganglia. Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, including RT-QuIC, total tau, and the 14-3-3 protein, along with post-mortem neuropathology, confirmed sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease of the MM1 subtype. The authors use the case to raise pointed questions about zoonotic surveillance, particularly for hunters with prolonged exposure to wildlife in regions where chronic wasting disease circulates.

Shifting to viral threats, Kuang and colleagues examined the epidemiological characteristics and transmission dynamics of Mpox-HIV co-infection in a low-incidence setting in Qinghai Province, China. The patient, a man who has sex with men, presented with a fever of 39.4 degrees Celsius, and recovery of mpox virus nucleic acid was confirmed from a nasopharyngeal swab. Genomic characterization identified the virus as clade IIb, C.1.1 sub-lineage, with the full designation B.1.3.1.1. Notably, the patient had no history of international travel, leading the authors to conclude that the most likely route of exposure was high-risk sexual contact within a local social or sexual network. This finding suggests that silent transmission may already be occurring in regions previously considered low-incidence, exposing systemic gaps in surveillance, diagnosis, and response.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s long tail is also examined. Makam and colleagues retrospectively analyzed reinfection data from patients during the second and third waves of the pandemic, finding that of 458 participants, 62, or 13.54 percent, who had a primary infection were confirmed to have been reinfected. Among these, 60 participants, or 13 percent, were asymptomatic, while 398, or 87 percent, were symptomatic, with fever being the most frequently observed symptom during both primary and reinfection episodes. The study also identified a statistically significant association between infection status and vomiting symptoms, adding to the growing body of evidence on how reinfection dynamics and vaccination status interact.

Perhaps the most geographically expansive contribution comes from Carrero and Mosquera, who reviewed the re-emergence of arboviruses across the Andean-Amazonian corridor in Latin America. Analyzing datasets on vector-borne diseases from selected countries between 2023 and 2026, they documented the persistence of malaria in Amazonian areas alongside a sustained increase in arboviral infections such as yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya. Colombia recorded 132 confirmed human cases of yellow fever between 2024 and 2025, while Ecuador registered 65 deaths from 37,840 cases of dengue. Signs of yellow fever re-emergence were also observed in Venezuela during 2025 and 2026, attributed to sylvatic cycles of the virus.

The authors attribute the re-emergence of these arboviruses to a convergence of ecological, social, and health factors, including poor health education, vaccine hesitancy, limited access to health services, the infodemic, and weaknesses in epidemiological surveillance and vector control. Their findings underscore how fragile public health infrastructure, when combined with environmental change and human mobility, can create conditions ripe for pathogens to resurge even in regions where they were previously contained.

Together, the studies in this collection offer a deeper understanding of the ecological, genetic, environmental, and socioeconomic factors that drive the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases. They also highlight the cascading effects these diseases exert on public health, societies, and economies, reinforcing the argument that no single discipline or nation can address these threats in isolation.

As the editorial’s authors make clear, the path forward demands sustained cross-sectoral integration, investment in molecular and genomic tools, and a willingness to confront the social and behavioral dimensions of disease transmission. From the jungles of the Amazon to the wildlife parks of Punjab and the clinics of Qinghai, the message is consistent: the next emerging disease is not a question of if, but when, and the world’s surveillance systems must be ready.

Subject of Research: Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and One Health surveillance

Article Title: Editorial: Exploring the dynamics of emerging and re-emerging diseases: from origins to impact, volume II

Article References: AL-Hosary, A. A. T. A., Shahzad, S., Shelly, S. Y., Akinsulie, O. C., & Onyiche, T. E. (2026). Editorial: Exploring the dynamics of emerging and re-emerging diseases: from origins to impact, volume II. Frontiers in Tropical Diseases, 7, Article 1966210. https://doi.org/10.3389/fitd.2026.1966210

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fitd.2026.1966210

Keywords: One Health, emerging diseases, re-emerging diseases, tropical disease surveillance, arboviruses, mpox, SARS-CoV-2, prion disease, multiplex PCR, molecular diagnostics, vector-borne diseases, public health