Potential Pathogens Reported in Species of the Family Viverridae and Their Implications for Human and Animal Health

Wicker, L. V.; Canfield, P. J.; Higgins, D. P.

This process of preparation of carcasses for human consumption presents a considerable risk for transmission of disease to and from viverrids (Wang, 2005; Woo et al., 2006) , a risk which is amplified by the illegal nature of much of the wildlife trade, meaning that slaughter and preparation for human consumption frequently occur outside government-regulated slaughterhouses, unbound by official hygiene standards (WCS, 2008) . Any one of the zoonotic pathogens reported for viverrids in this review may be transmitted to humans during this process, but the rabies virus, another significant viral zoonosis commonly reported for viverrids, is one for which this process is a documented transmission risk (Table 1 ). The broad tissue tropism of rabies (Carey and McLean, 1978) facilitates aerosolization and environmental contamination during the butchering of rabid animals, resulting in confirmed cases of transmission to people following slaughter of domestic dog and cat in China and Vietnam (Kureishi et al., 1992; Wertheim et al., 2009; Nguyen et al., 2011) . Given the conditions in which the wildlife trade currently operates, the considerable scale of trade in viverrids and their susceptibility to such a wide range of multihost organisms, it is likely that species from this family could again play a central role in the emergence, amplification and transmission of disease to people within this system (Dong et al., 2007) .