Environmental Persistence of Zoonotic Pathogens and Public Health Risk
DOI::
https://doi.org/10.70102/AEJ.2026.18.1.10کلمات کلیدی:
Zoonotic pathogens, Environmental persistence, Public health Risk, Exposure modeling.چکیده
The role of the environmental persistence of zoonotic pathogens in epidemiological frameworks is often underrepresented when considering the extent of its influence on the dynamics of transmission, the ability to detect outbreaks, and the risk to public health. This research designs a novel integrated framework to analyze the impact of the environmental persistence of pathogens on total human risk and the potential for outbreaks. This research integrates reported persistence ranges to decay modeling, potential exposure estimation, and risk characterization to describe the heterogeneity of persistence in soil, water, organic waste, aerosols, and fomites, and its strong dependence on climate. The study finds that environmental persistence is a non-linear risk amplifier, in which a small increase in the duration of pathogen survival can lead to a significant increase in total infection risk and facilitates prolonged transmission that is concealed. The study finds that persistence reservoirs hinder outbreak surveillance and obstruct the efficacy of interventions that focus on animal hosts. The study emphasizes the importance of the environmental persistence of pathogens and the need for novel surveillance and mitigation frameworks to assist in the early detection of public health zoonotic threats.