A zoonosis or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen that can jump from a non-human to a human and vice versa.
Filoviridae is a family of single-stranded negative-sense RNA viruses in the order Mononegavirales. Two members of the family that are commonly known are Ebola virus and Marburg virus. Both viruses, and some of their lesser known relatives, cause severe disease in humans and nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fevers.
Influenza A virus (IAV) is the only species of the genus Alphainfluenzavirus of the virus family Orthomyxoviridae. It is a pathogen with strains that infect birds and some mammals, as well as causing seasonal flu in humans. Mammals in which different strains of IAV circulate with sustained transmission are bats, pigs, horses and dogs; other mammals can occasionally become infected.
The genus Marburgvirus is the taxonomic home of Marburg marburgvirus, whose members are the two known marburgviruses, Marburg virus (MARV) and Ravn virus (RAVV). Both viruses cause Marburg virus disease in humans and nonhuman primates, a form of viral hemorrhagic fever. Both are select agents, World Health Organization Risk Group 4 Pathogens, National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Category A Priority Pathogens, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Category A Bioterrorism Agents, and are listed as Biological Agents for Export Control by the Australia Group.
Clarence James Peters, Jr is a physician, field virologist and former U.S. Army colonel. He is noted for his efforts in trying to stem epidemics of exotic infectious diseases such as the Ebola virus, Hanta virus and Rift Valley fever (RVF). He is an eminent authority on the virology, pathogenesis and epidemiology of hemorrhagic fever viruses.
Hon. Richard Tedder FRCP is an English virologist and microbiologist, was head of the Department of Virology at the University College London Medical School, and worked as virologist at Public Health England
Reston virus (RESTV) is one of six known viruses within the genus Ebolavirus. Reston virus causes Ebola virus disease in non-human primates; out of all 6 ebolaviruses, it is one of the only two not known to cause disease in humans, but has caused asymptomatic infections. Reston virus was first described in 1990 as a new "strain" of Ebola virus (EBOV). It is the single member of the species Reston ebolavirus, which is included into the genus Ebolavirus, family Filoviridae, order Mononegavirales. Reston virus is named after Reston, Virginia, US, where the virus was first discovered.
Marburg virus (MARV) is a hemorrhagic fever virus of the Filoviridae family of viruses and a member of the species Marburg marburgvirus, genus Marburgvirus. It causes Marburg virus disease in primates, a form of viral hemorrhagic fever. The World Health Organization (WHO) rates it as a Risk Group 4 Pathogen. In the United States, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ranks it as a Category A Priority Pathogen and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists it as a Category A Bioterrorism Agent. It is also listed as a biological agent for export control by the Australia Group.
Zaire ebolavirus, more commonly known as Ebola virus, is one of six known species within the genus Ebolavirus. Four of the six known ebolaviruses, including EBOV, cause a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and other mammals, known as Ebola virus disease (EVD). Ebola virus has caused the majority of human deaths from EVD, and was the cause of the 2013–2016 epidemic in western Africa, which resulted in at least 28,646 suspected cases and 11,323 confirmed deaths.
Christopher Mores is an American (US) arbovirologist, trained in infectious disease epidemiology. He is a professor in the Department of Global Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, the program director for the Global Health Epidemiology and Disease Control MPH program, and is director of a high-containment research laboratory at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.
José Esparza is a Venezuelan American virologist who lives in the USA. He is known for his efforts to promote the international development and testing of vaccines against HIV/AIDS. During 17 years he pursued an academic career at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), attaining positions as full professor of virology and chairman of its Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology. From 1986 to 2014 he worked continuously as a viral vaccine expert and senior public health adviser for international health policy agencies such as the World Health Organization, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. José G. Esparza is currently an adjunct professor of medicine, at the Institute of Human Virology. During 2016 he was the president of the Global Virus Network. In the context of historical studies on the early use of horsepox for smallpox vaccination, Esparza was appointed in 2018 as a Robert Koch Fellow at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany. He is an active member of the Latin American Academy of Sciences, ACAL.
Oyewale Tomori is a Nigerian professor of virology, educational administrator, and former vice chancellor of Redeemer's University. In 2024, he became the chair of West Africa National Academy of Scientists.
Robert Ellis Shope was an American virologist, epidemiologist and public health expert, particularly known for his work on arthropod-borne viruses and emerging infectious diseases. He discovered more novel viruses than any person previously, including members of the Arenavirus, Hantavirus, Lyssavirus and Orbivirus genera of RNA viruses. He researched significant human diseases, including dengue, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers and Lyme disease. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of viruses, and curated a global reference collection of over 5,000 viral strains. He was the lead author of a groundbreaking report on the threat posed by emerging infectious diseases, and also advised on climate change and bioterrorism.
The Global Virus Network (GVN) is an international coalition of medical virologists whose goal is to help the international medical community by improving the detection and management of viral diseases. The network was founded in 2011 by Robert Gallo in collaboration with William Hall and Reinhard Kurth, and 24 countries were members of the network as of 2015. The GVN fosters research into viruses that cause human disease to promote the development of diagnostics, antiviral drugs and vaccines, and its mission includes strengthening scientific training and response mechanisms to viral outbreaks. The GVN has organized task forces for chikungunya, human T-lymphotropic virus, and Zika. The network is headquartered at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Gallo serves as its scientific director.
Karl M Johnson was an American virologist, known for discovering Machupo virus, Hantaan virus, and Ebola virus. He has held key positions in the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Hélio Gelli Pereira was a Brazilian-British virologist specialising in adenoviruses. Pereira was a co-recipient of the 1988 UNESCO Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology and was known for his work on the book, Viruses of Vertebrates. He contributed to several areas of virology in research and international public service.
Robert A. Lamb was a British-American virologist. He was the Kenneth F. Burgess Professor at Northwestern University and since 1991, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 1990 to 2016, he was the John Evans Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Northwestern University.
Patricia Ann Webb was a microbiologist known for her work in characterising and classifying severe contagious diseases including Machupo, Lassa and Ebola viruses.
Marietjie Van Aardt Venter or simply Marietjie Venter, is a South African virologist and researcher. She serves as a distinguished professor and research chair in Emerging Viral Threats & One Health (EViTOH) in the Infectious Disease and Oncology Research Institute (IDORI) at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since 2021, she has chaired the SAGO, a WHO permanent advisory body on the origins of emerging infectious diseases including COVID-19. Prior to this, Venter has been serving in the Department of Medical Virology at the University of Pretoria since 2005, leading the Zoonotic Arbo & Respiratory Viruses research program and co-founding the Centre for Viral Zoonoses and is the Director for the Centre for Emerging arbo and respiratory virus research (CEARV) in an extraordinary Professor position at University of Pretoria.
Edwin Herman Lennette was an American physician, virologist, and pioneer of diagnostic virology.
