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 Approximately 60 to 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are
so-called "zoonotic events" -- where animal diseases jump into
people -- and bats in particular are known to carry many zoonotic
viruses.
The tiny animals are the suspected origin of rabies, Ebola, SARS
(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and possibly Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and could cause other as yet unknown
epidemics in future.
Scientists at University College London (UCL), the Zoological
Society of London and Edinburgh University aimed to map out the
highest-risk areas, using a variety of factors including large
numbers of bat viruses found locally, increasing population
pressure, and hunting bats for bushmeat.
Kate Jones, UCL's chair of ecology and biodiversity, said her team
first created risk maps for each variable and found, for example,
that in mapping for potential human-bat contact, sub-Saharan Africa
was a hotspot, while for diversity of bat viruses, South America was
at most risk.
"By combining the separate maps, we've created the first global
picture of the overall risks of bat viruses infecting humans in
different regions," she said.
The work was published in journal The American Naturalist.
The research, using data published between 1900 and 2013, found that
overall West Africa -- the epicenter of the recent Ebola outbreak --
is at highest risk for zoonotic bat viruses. The wider sub-Saharan
Africa region, as well as South East Asia, were also found to be
hotspots.
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Liam Brierley, a PhD student at Edinburgh University who worked with
Jones, said the risk of bat to human virus transmission is being
driven higher by large and increasing populations of people and
livestock expanding into wild areas such as forests.
"People in these areas may also hunt bats for bushmeat, unaware of
the risks of transmissible diseases which can occur through touching
body fluids and raw meat of bats," he said.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Catherine Evans)
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