29/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - Identifying drivers requires holistic approach, says EFSA. Understanding the drivers for Ebola transmission from animals to humans (or spillover) requires a multi-disciplinary perspective, concludes a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), published on 25 June. Through an in-depth review of the scientific literature, EFSA experts were able to identify the various drivers and grouped them into categories: social, technological, environmental, economic, and political. They analysed the main arguments used in literature to identify links between drivers, and produced visualisations showing networks of drivers, their interactions and the strength of their links. “This report clearly shows how important it is that research on the emergence of infectious diseases should take a holistic approach, picking from different disciplines. The methodology used in this report can be applied to other complex topics that require graphical visualisation of diverse yet connected factors”, said Franck Berthe, who heads EFSA's Animal and Plant Health unit. Given the paucity of documented spillover events for which scientific evidence is available, the report has some limitations and therefore the outcomes need to be interpreted with caution, EFSA makes clear. (AN)