Abstract:

[Objective] To gather information on the research status and the hot spots of zoonosis and zoonotic microorganisms worldwide, and to provide references for the prevention and control of zoonotic diseases in China. [Method] COOC 12.6 and Citespace 5.8 R1 software were used to carry out frequency statistics, co-occurrence analysis, cluster analysis, timeline analysis and burst analysis on the keywords associated with zoonosis and zoonotic microorganisms in PubMed database. [Result] According to the keywords frequency statistics and co-occurrence analysis results from the year of 2001 to 2021 in pubMed database, the zoonosis and zoonotic microorganisms arousing high international attentions were classified into the following three categories: the first category was commonly observed zoonotic microorganisms such as Brucella, hepatitis E virus, Streptococcus, Escherichia coli （E. coli） and Salmonella, to which continuous public attentions were still needed to be paid; the second category was the zoonotic microorganisms worldwide concerned in recent years such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 （SARS-CoV-2） and influenza A virus, which were worthy of more in-depth research to control the spread of these diseases as soon as possible; the third category was the zoonosis that had massively prevailed in specific regions abroad such as Q fever and middle east respiratory syndrome （MERS）, and these diseases were expected to be noticed in terms of imported risks to avoid their outbreaks in China. In addition to the above mentioned zoonosis and zoonotic microorganisms, some keywords associated with detection and diagnosis such as phylogeny and PCR were also of high interests. The cluster analysis generated a total of 10 clusters, in which the tick-borne infectious disease cluster suggested the role of ticks in the transmission of zoonotic diseases; the results of timeline and burst analysis demonstrated that among the zoonotic microorganisms, the attentions being paid to influenza A virus and SARS-CoV-2 were gradually increasing. At the same time, the detection technology of zoonotic microorganisms was evolving from specific sequence detection to whole genome sequencing. These fields were likely to be the research direction and trend in the future. [Conclusion] The findings in this study imply that interests in the studies on zoonosis and zoonotic microorganisms are growing, and that advances have being made in the technology used to detect these zoonotic microorganisms. In China, the prevention and control of influenza A and corona virus disease 2019 （COVID-19） should be given top priority and tick-borne infectious diseases should also receive certain attention. These information may serve as a guide for the prevention and control of zoonosis in China.

Key words: zoonosis, pathogenic microorganisms, PubMed database, influenza A, corona virus disease 2019, whole genome sequencing