West Africa Study finds region at highest risk of bat-to-human virus spread
"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.
Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia
are most at risk from bat viruses jumping to humans and causing new
diseases that could lead to deadly outbreaks, scientists warned on
Tuesday.
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 epicentre 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.
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.
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