Editorial: The Belt and Road of Animal Diseases

1 Institute of Animal Health, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou, China, 2 Scientific Observation and Experiment Station of Veterinary Drugs and Diagnostic Techniques of Guangdong, Ministry of Agriculture of Rural Affairs, Guangzhou, China, 3 Key Laboratory of Animal Disease Prevention of Guangdong, Guangzhou, China, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Maoming Branch, Maoming, China


INTRODUCTION
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013. This investment and infrastructure development strategy drives the world's economic development. However, this initiative has resulted in an increase in the transnational spread of animal diseases, which caused a significant economic loss to the global animal industry. For example, in 2013, Peste des petits ruminant virus entered China (1); in 2015, Senecavirus A outbreak occurred in China (2); since 2018, African swine fever virus swept into east Asia and Southeast Asia (3); in 2019; lumpy skin disease virus emerged in China (4); in 2013, Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea was found in the United States (5). Strategies to avoid or reduce transnational spread of animal infectious diseases is an important issue, which can be addressed by a multidisciplinary approach including rapid virus detection, metagenomic sequencing, and epidemiology. Other measures such as scientific popularization of disease knowledge, combating smuggling activities, border trade control, and wildlife management should facilitate the control and prevention of these rapidly evolving infectious diseases of animals in a timely and effective manner.
The aim of this Research Topic is to offer an opportunity to collect the newest research and development in the field of "The Belt and Road" of Animal Diseases. Early warning, virus detection, genetic evolution, disseminating disease knowledge, combating smuggling activities, border trade control (among others) are topics that we aim to explore.

ORGANIZATION OF THE RESEARCH TOPIC
In this Research Topic, we received 16 manuscripts, 11 (1 review, 9 original research, 1 brief research report) were accepted for publication. Among them, 9 papers involved virus research, and two papers involved bacterial research. In 9 viral topic-related papers, 5 papers involved nidovirus research; 2 papers involved circovirus research; one paper involved herpesvirus research; one paper focused on picornavirus research. The first nidovirus paper reported the genetic diversity In two bacterial studies, Liu et al. collected genotype data of Brucella strains from 11 countries along the Silk Road, the combination of whole-genome sequencing and single-nucleotide polymorphism (WGS-SNP) phylogenetic analysis showed that some genotypes spread within the national borders and other genotypes continuously expanded and spread in countries along with Silk Road. The authors strengthen that there is an urgent need for the control (especially entry-exit quarantine of animal brucellosis) of transfer and trade of infected sheep/goats in countries along the Silk Road. Li et al. reported the host cytokine response differences in piglets infected with toxigenic and nontoxigenic staphylococcus hyicus (S. hyicus) It was helpful to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of S. hyicus.

CONCLUSION
Since the beginning of 2020, The Research Topic began to receive the manuscript submission, and invited more than 60 research team from the world to submit the manuscript. But we finally received 16 manuscripts that might be caused on on-going COVID-19 pandemic, which clearly affects our research and work progress. Although the Topic provides overviews of some pathogen cross-region threats and discusses current and novel strategies for the detection and control, the manuscripts associated with transboundary infectious diseases and foreign diseases (especially Peste des petits ruminant, African swine fever and lumpy skin disease) were lacking. In the following work, we hope that more scientists pay more attention to these diseases in order to reduce or prevent the spread of transboundary infectious diseases and foreign diseases in animals.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
S-LZ wrote the editorial and approved it for publication.