Emerging zoonotic diseases in Southeast Asia in the period 2011–2022: a systematic literature review

Abstract

As COVID-19 has shown, pandemics and outbreaks of emerging infections such as Zika, Nipah, monkeypox and antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, especially emerging zoonotic diseases, continue to occur and may even be increasing in Southeast Asia. In addition, these infections often result from environmental changes and human behaviour. Overall, public health surveillance to identify gaps in the literature and early warning signs are essential in this region. A systematic review investigated the prevalence of emerging zoonotic diseases over 11 years from 2011 to 2022 in Southeast Asia to understand the status of emerging zoonotic diseases, as well as to provide necessary actions for disease control and prevention in the region. During the 2011–2022 period, studies on pigs, poultry, ruminants, companion animals and wildlife in Southeast Asia were reviewed thoroughly to assess the quality of reporting items for inclusion in the systematic review. The review was performed on 26 studies of pigs, 6 studies of poultry, 21 studies of ruminants, 28 studies of companion animals and 25 studies of wildlife in Southeast Asia, which provide a snapshot of the prevalence of the emerging zoonotic disease across the country. The findings from the review showed that emerging zoonotic diseases were prevalent across the region and identified a few zoonotic diseases associated with poultry, mainly stemming from Cambodia and Vietnam, as high priority in Southeast Asia.

Clinical relevance: Appropriate prevention and control measures should be taken to mitigate the emerging zoonotic diseases in Southeast Asia.

Keywords:

• Emerging zoonotic diseases
• pig
• poultry
• ruminant
• companion animal
• wildlife
• southeast Asia
• prevalence

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all reviewers for their constructive comments and valuable suggestions.

Authors contributions

T.T.N, T.N.M, S.D.X, HNV, FU, H.S.L collected the data, performed statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. T.T.N, T.N.M and H.S.L. conceived and participated in the design of the study, wrote the manuscript, and reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the submitted version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA), Republic of Korea and research fund of Chungnam National University. In addition, this work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MIST) (No. 2021R1A6A1A03045495)