"Expert Talk" Webinar: Wildlife trade drives animal to human pathogen transmission over 40 years

On 10th June 2026, the International Alliance against Health Risks in Wildlife Trade hosted its latest Alliance "Expert Talk" Webinar. In this talk, Dr Jérôme Gippet presented insights from a recent Science article on how wildlife trade has shaped animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years. Summary: Global wildlife trade brings wild animals and humans into close and repeated contact across harvesting, transport, markets, consumption, and captivity. These interactions create opportunities for pathogens to move between species and can contribute to the emergence of infectious diseases. Dr Jérôme Gippet and co-authors combined global wildlife trade records with host–pathogen association data to examine how wildlife trade has influenced animal-to-human pathogen transmission. Their findings show that traded wild animals, particularly mammals, are more likely to share pathogens with humans — and that risk grows with the length of time a species has been traded. Live-animal and illegal trade further increase this risk, highlighting wildlife trade as a significant driver of zoonotic risk. About the Speaker: Jérôme Gippet is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Trained as an invasion biologist and urban ecologist at the University of Lyon, he later worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne, where he investigated emerging exotic pet markets in invertebrates. His research is strongly data-driven and often draws on unconventional sources, such as online pet shops and social media, to better understand wildlife markets and their consequences for biodiversity, invasion dynamics, and pathogen transmission. About the Alliance’s Expert talk series: The International Alliance against Health Risks in Wildlife Trade is a global, interdisciplinary network of over 180 organisations and more than 500 experts working to prevent pathogen spillover by bridging science, policy and practice. The "Expert Talk" webinar series has been designed to share the latest evidence-based knowledge related to health risks and wildlife trade.