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Papers by Peter Hudson

Nature

During recent decades, pathogens that originated in bats have become an increasing public health ... more During recent decades, pathogens that originated in bats have become an increasing public health concern. A major challenge is to identify how those pathogens spill over into human populations to generate a pandemic threat1. Many correlational studies associate spillover with changes in land use or other anthropogenic stressors2,3, although the mechanisms underlying the observed correlations have not been identified4. One limitation is the lack of spatially and temporally explicit data on multiple spillovers, and on the connections among spillovers, reservoir host ecology and behaviour and viral dynamics. We present 25 years of data on land-use change, bat behaviour and spillover of Hendra virus from Pteropodid bats to horses in subtropical Australia. These data show that bats are responding to environmental change by persistently adopting behaviours that were previously transient responses to nutritional stress. Interactions between land-use change and climate now lead to persisten...

Emerging Infectious Diseases

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are highly susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2, wit... more White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are highly susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2, with multiple reports of widespread spillover of virus from humans to free-living deer. While the recently emerged SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 Omicron variant of concern (VoC) has been shown to be notably more transmissible amongst humans, its ability to cause infection and spillover to non-human animals remains a challenge of concern. We found that 19 of the 131 (14.5%; 95% CI: 0.10–0.22) white-tailed deer opportunistically sampled on Staten Island, New York, between December 12, 2021, and January 31, 2022, were positive for SARS-CoV-2 specific serum antibodies using a surrogate virus neutralization assay, indicating prior exposure. The results also revealed strong evidence of age-dependence in antibody prevalence. A significantly (χ2, p < 0.001) greater proportion of yearling deer possessed neutralizing antibodies as compared with fawns (OR=12.7; 95% CI 4–37.5). Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 nuclei...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022

Significance The results provide strong evidence of extensive SARS-CoV-2 infection of white-taile... more Significance The results provide strong evidence of extensive SARS-CoV-2 infection of white-tailed deer, a free-living wild animal species with widespread distribution across North, Central, and South America. The analysis shows infection of deer resulted from multiple spillovers from humans, followed by efficient deer-to-deer transmission. The discovery of widespread infection of white-tailed deer indicates their establishment as potential reservoir hosts for SARS-CoV-2, a finding with important implications for the ecology, long-term persistence, and evolution of the virus, including the potential for spillback to humans.

Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2021

Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2020

Journal of Bacteriology, 2005

Brucellosis is a worldwide disease of humans and livestock that is caused by a number of very clo... more Brucellosis is a worldwide disease of humans and livestock that is caused by a number of very closely related classical Brucella species in the alpha-2 subdivision of the Proteobacteria. We report the complete genome sequence of Brucella abortus field isolate 9-941 and compare it to those of Brucella suis 1330 and Brucella melitensis 16 M. The genomes of these Brucella species are strikingly similar, with nearly identical genetic content and gene organization. However, a number of insertion-deletion events and several polymorphic regions encoding putative outer membrane proteins were identified among the genomes. Several fragments previously identified as unique to either B. suis or B. melitensis were present in the B. abortus genome. Even though several fragments were shared between only B. abortus and B. suis , B. abortus shared more fragments and had fewer nucleotide polymorphisms with B. melitensis than B. suis . The complete genomic sequence of B. abortus provides an important ...