Diseases transmitted from animals to humans are called zoonoses.
Several of the world's most contagious outbreaks are zoonoses and the infections can spread rapidly between countries.
Therefore, according to the Swedish Public Health Agency, preparedness is important.
A project is now underway at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, where researchers are developing a new method to warn of the next outbreak of the common zoonosis disease harpest, and this will be done by taking an inventory of barn owls.
The barn owl hunts infected animals
The barn owl is found in most of Sweden and its primary food is voles.
Vultures in particular often become ill with harpest, which they then pass on to humans.
An earlier pilot study has shown that the barn owl targets infected voles.
- The owls hunt prey and prefer those that are easy to get hold of.
In the case of harpest, we know that the voles are quite strongly affected, then they become easy prey for the owls, says Frauke Ecke, ecologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, who leads the research project.
By taking an inventory of the barn owl's nests, you can see how many voles have been infected by the harp.
The barn owls' prey animals are picked out and replaced during the inventory with other food.
The prey animals are then analyzed to see if disease outbreaks of harp have increased.
About 500 nests are included in the project.
Warning system for future infections
Pearl owls build up a prey store in early spring.
As early as May, it is possible to see what diseases are present among the prey in the nests, ie before humans usually become ill with harp.
This is because it usually happens in the autumn.
- Because we have this time gap, we can use the prey in the nests to warn the public and doctors in case there is a risk of disease outbreaks, says Frauke Ecke.
The ongoing project focuses on the harp, but in the future it could be about mapping more diseases in this way.
- We know from previous studies that these worms that we work with carry various viruses, such as heather virus, worm fever virus and TBE virus that can cause meningitis.
So there are many different infectious agents that are possible to study here, says Frauke Ecke.
The research team therefore hopes that the method can be used in the future to prevent epidemics.
But the method is still new.
- All new tools to warn of outbreaks are welcome, says Ali Mirazimi virus researcher at the Swedish Veterinary Institute and Karolinska Institutet.