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. 2011 Sep 14;59(3):155–163. doi: 10.1111/j.1863-2378.2011.01439.x

Table 1.

 Historical examples of spillover events [a] and species jumps [b]

Virus (species name) Animal hosts* Date Location Reference*
[a] Spillover events
Marburgvirus (Lake Victoria marburgvirus) Unknown 1967 Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany Martini, 1969; Towner et al., 2009
Hantavirus (Sin Nombre virus) Deer mouse 1993 Four Corners area, US Centers for Disease Control, Prevention., 1993
Monkeypox (Monkeypox virus) Monkey, prairie dog, African rodents, et al. 1970 Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo Anon. 1971
Human‐adapted virus Animal‐derived virus Animals with confirmed infections* Date of first detected human outbreak/case Location Reference*
[b] Species jumps
SARS coronavirus SARS‐like coronavirus Civet, raccoon dog, bat§ 2003 Multicountry (Viet Nam, China, Singapore, Thailand, Canada) Anon, 2003, Li et al., 2005; Guan et al., 2003
HIV‐1 SIVcpz (simian immunodeficiency virus chimpanzee) Chimpanzee Before 1959 Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Rep of Congo) Zhu et al., 1998; Korber et al., 2000; Worobey et al., 2008
Influenza A subtype pdmH1N1 Influenza A subtype H1N1 Pig 2009 Northern Mexico Anon, 2009

*The distinction between spillover events and species jumps can be blurry. Spillover events are defined here as incidental human outbreaks without sustained human‐human transmission; species jumps are driven by genetic changes that enable sustained human‐human transmission. Viruses that have spilled over into human populations may subsequently evolve (i.e. jump) to efficiently transmit among human hosts.

Marburg viral RNA and antiviral serum antibodies were detected in Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in Uganda (Towner et al., 2009).

While these outbreaks occurred in Germany, both were caused by exposure to the same lot of green monkeys (Chlorocebus sp, formerly genus Cercopithecus) imported from Uganda.

§While infected animals have been detected in markets, they have not yet been detected in the wild.

Two more recent studies have narrowed this estimate to 1915–1941 (Korber et al., 2000) and 1884–1923 (Worobey et al., 2008) using phylogenetic analyses.