Bats Carry More Human-Infecting Virus than Rodents

According to the latest finding published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, bats carry more human-infecting viruses that are easily transmitted from animals to humans, when compared to rodents.

The study conducted by scientists from University of Colorado suggests that more than 60 human-infecting viruses termed as zoonotics are present in bats, reports LiveScience.

The finding is a result of collaborative work conducted by Luis and Webb, who scoured the existing studies.

"There's been a lot of rumour that bats might be special in some way as far as their potential to host zoonotic diseases," Angela Luis, a postdoctoral fellow who conducted the research with Colleen Webb, a biology professor at Colorado State, said in a press statement.

In order to prove their hypothesis, the researchers checked the number of viruses in rodents and found they carried 179 viruses, out of which 68 were zoonotic. On the other hand, bats carried just 61 zoonotic viruses out of 137 viruses.

"We found that although there are twice as many rodent species as there are bat species, bats hosted more zoonotic viruses per species than rodents," Luis continued to say.

Each bat hosts 1.79 zoonotic viruses, whereas rodents have 1.48 virus per species, reports LiveScience.

Bats are a host of SARS, Ebola, Nipah and Hendra viruses, which are known to be hazardous to humans. What is even more dangerous is that the bats are capable of spreading these viruses between species. They spread easily among different bat species that share the same geological location.

Luis concludes saying, bats are really important ecologically. Through this study, the researchers plan to promote restraining bat and human contact, which will be helpful for both bat preservation and human health.