Bat research is a key way to prevent the next pandemic

Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro — Four Brazilian scientists turned on their flashlights and walked through a narrow muddy path through a dense rainforest, and the dawn began at Pedra Branca State Park in Rio de Janeiro. Researchers were on a mission to capture bats and help prevent the next pandemic.

A few meters away, the bat, almost invisible in the dark, made a high-pitched squeak as it pressed its wings against the thin nylon net that caught it. One of the researchers used his pointed teeth to remove a gloved finger-biting bat.

The night out in November was part of a project by Brazil’s National Fiocrus Institute to collect and study viruses present in wildlife, including bats. Many scientists believe that it is associated with the outbreak of COVID-19.

The current goal is to identify other viruses that can be highly contagious and deadly to humans and use that information to devise plans to prevent the virus from infecting people. It is to prevent the outbreak of potential global illnesses.

In a highly connected world, like the coronavirus, a single outbreak puts the entire globe at risk. And the Brazilian team is just one of many races around the world to minimize the risk of a second pandemic of the century.

For some, it may seem premature to think of the next global outbreak. The world is tackling the catastrophic collapse of an ongoing outbreak. But without savvy intervention, scientists say it’s very similar to find conditions where another new virus can fly from an animal to a human host and spread like a wildfire.

As this pandemic shows, modern transport can disperse pathogens in every corner of the globe in hours and easily spread to densely populated cities.

According to Dr. Gagandeep Kang, an infectious disease expert at Christian Medical College in Velor, southern India, it doesn’t matter when.

She pointed forward the study India is one of the most likely places for such “spillover” events due to the increasing invasion of humans and livestock into densely populated and wildlife-dense tropical forests. It turned out to be.

It’s no coincidence that many scientists are paying attention to bats, the only flying mammal in the world.

Bats are believed to be the original or intermediate host of several viruses that have caused recent epidemics, including COVID-19, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, and Marburg virus. 2019 Research Of the five most common mammal-derived viruses, primates, rodents, carnivores, ungulates, and bats, the bat-derived virus was found to be the most virulent in humans.

Bats are a diverse group, with more than 1,400 species inhabiting all continents except Antarctica. However, what many people have in common is an adaptation that allows them to carry a deadly virus to humans and livestock while still exhibiting minimal symptoms. That is, they can move and shed those viruses instead of being immediately disturbed.

“The secret is that bats have an abnormal immune system, which is related to their ability to fly,” said epidemiologist Reina Proulite, who studies bats at Montana State University.

It takes an incredible amount of energy to get off the ground and sustain flight, and bats’ metabolic rate increases 16-fold, Plowright said. “You would expect them to suffer cell damage from all their metabolic movements,” she said.

But that doesn’t happen.Instead, bats are very elastic and have many species life Over 30 years — very rare for such small mammals.

Plowright and other bat scientists believe that evolutionary tweaks that help bats recover from flight stress also provide additional protection against pathogens.

Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at McMaster University in Canada, said: “Bats seem to have evolved the ancillary benefits of flight: resistance to dealing with the most troublesome viruses known in science.

Scientists are still unraveling the mystery, but two main theories may be that bats have evolved what Banergie called an “efficient DNA repair mechanism,” or the bat’s body is inflamed. It tightly regulates the triggering of the virus and may not overreact to viral infections.

Exploring the secrets of the bat’s immune system may not only help scientists better understand when bats shed the virus, but may also provide hints for possible future treatment strategies, he said. Said.

Bats and other animals that carry pathogens pose essentially no risk to humans unless the conditions are suitable for a spillover event. Cara Brook, a disease ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said:

Bad news: increase Destruction And habitat fragmentation around the world — especially in biodiversity areas such as: Tropical forest — It means that the contact rate between wildlife and humans is increasing, and the chances of spread are increasing.

That’s why Brazilian researchers chose Pedra Branca Park. As one of the largest forests in the world in urban areas, it offers constant interaction between wildlife and thousands of humans and livestock in the surrounding community. Scientists are studying not only bats, but also small primates, wild cats, and domestic cats in homes with confirmed cases of COVID-19.

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Ian MacKaye, a virologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, said scientists and governments are more likely to contain future outbreaks if they can know when and where they occur earlier.

“Continuous and continuous non-stop monitoring” in line with the policies of the Influenza Institute set up around the world by the World Health Organization may help researchers make better preparations, he said. Stated. He also suggested that laboratories for virus detection could regularly sample wastewater or materials from hospitals.

In India, a national mission on biodiversity and human well-being has been put on hold since 2018 and may begin next year. Abitami Mubanak, an Ashok Trust conservation scientist for Bangalore ecology and environmental studies, said that the central part of the plan is to set up 25 sentry surveillance sites nationwide, both in rural and urban areas. Said that.

“They will be the first line of defense,” he said.

Various patchwork of virus monitoring programs exist in some countries, but funding tends to decline due to political conditions and urgency.

Some of the most ambitious efforts Global Virome project, Aiming to discover 500,000 new viruses in 10 years.

Recent US Agency for International Development Presentation $ 100 million launch Stop the spillover effect The project is led by Tufts University scientists and includes a global partner to study zoonotic diseases in Africa and Asia.

According to scientists, one of the useless approaches is to treat bats as enemies. You can blame bats, throw stones, and try to burn them from caves.

This spring, villagers in Rajasthan, India, identified bat colonies in abandoned forts and palaces and killed hundreds with bats and sticks. They also closed some gaps where the bats lived and effectively trapped them. In Karnataka, India, villagers have cut down old trees that tend to roost bats.

Scientists say those tactics are likely to backfire.

Ann Research According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Ugandan Health Authority, the remaining bats showed higher levels of Marburg virus infection after mining operations attempted to clear bats from Ugandan caves. This caused the virus to cause the most severe outbreak of Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Uganda in 2012.

“Stress is a major factor in the natural imbalance between bats and viruses. The more stress you put on bats, the more they shed the virus,” said Vikram Misra, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Although orders by Indian forest authorities to repeat information campaigns to completely ban wildlife killings and dispel myths have been largely successful, persuading people not to attack bats is a long-standing cultural It means dispelling assumptions.

“People have a lot of misconceptions about bats. They are nocturnal and appear to fly a bit strange. There is a lot of literature and culture built around scary bats.” , Said Hannah Kim Frank, a biologist at Tulane University. “But bats are not aggressive, and attacking bats does not help control the disease.”

Bats also play an important role in ecosystems. Bats consume insects such as mosquitoes, pollinate plants such as agave, and disperse seeds.

“In fact, we need wild bats to consume insects that destroy cotton, corn and pecan harvests,” said Kristen Lear, an ecologist at Bat Conservational International.

According to Frank, a better approach to minimizing the risk of illness is simply to minimize contact between wild bats and humans and livestock.

She said studies on when bats move and when new puppies are born can inform decisions about whether people should avoid certain areas or keep livestock. Suggested.

In North America, some scientists have advocated restricting public access to bat-roosting caves.

Kate Langwig, an infectious disease ecologist at Virginia Tech, said: “Cave gating (a bat-friendly gate made of iron crossbars) keeps humans out and allows bats to move freely.” You have to leave the bats alone to hurt or extinct them. , Bats will be healthier. “

Perhaps the most important factor in bats’ more frequent contact with humans and livestock is habitat destruction, which requires bats to seek new feeding grounds and roosting sites.

In Australia, winter flowering eucalyptus trees that provide nectar to fruit bats, locally known as “flying foxes,” have been extensively destroyed, causing bats to be close to human settlements, such as the outskirts of Brisbane called Hendra. I moved to and looked for another meal.

There, bats infect horses with the virus, and horses infect people. First identified and named in 1994 Hendra virus,that is Very deadlyKilled 60% of infected people and 75% of horses.

A similar series of events took place in Bangladesh, where habitat destruction forced fruit bats into cities and spread there. Nipah virus, Licking causes severe encephalitis in humans Date palm sap From the collection barrel.

Australia-based Montana State University Plowright and colleagues are studying to potentially reverse the movement of bats Restore The original habitat of bats.

“All Australian cities are full of fruit bats that have lost their winter habitat,” she said. “The idea is to plant a new forest and make sure it is away from where livestock and people are.”

Whether the goal is to reduce the spread of known zoonotic diseases or reduce the risk of new zoonotic diseases that emerge as pandemics, the strategy is the same. It is to reduce contact between humans and wild animals.

“In the history of COVID-19, bats were more victims than victims,” ​​said Ricardo Moratelli, coordinator of the Brazilian Fiocrus project. “Bats keep a large number of parasites and handle these parasites well. The problem is when humans come into contact with them.”

Larson reported from Washington. Silva Desusa reported from Rio de Janeiro. Gosal reported from New Delhi.

The Associated Press’s Department of Health Sciences is supported by the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.