Bat's Link to Ebola Finally Solved

[AlaskaDenise]

Bat's Link to Ebola Finally Solved

A new paper outlines five steps required for a virus to ?spill over? from bats to humans. But don?t just blame the bats?deforestation and hunting are to blame, too.

.....?We really know very little about what precipitates the spillover of pathogens,? said the study?s first author, Raina Plowright, a researcher at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State University. ?What we do know, however, is that there are clear links to environmental change.?

.....The growth in human population in recent years has led to large-scale deforestation, especially in Southeast Asia, to make room for human settlements as well as crops and livestock. As a result, many bat species are finding their homes and food sources gone. Some species may simply move out of the area or go locally extinct, but other species can adapt to humans by roosting in our buildings and eating the fruit on our trees. They leave their urine, feces, and saliva behind, all of which may contain viruses. If livestock become infected, they are often kept in close quarters with other animals and near humans, all of which gives a bat virus ample opportunity to spread.

?As we have more intensive agricultural practices, which place lots of different animals together, we will have more possibility for spillover,? says Kitron.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Bat's Link to Ebola Finally Solved

David Quammen's books also proposes the spillover theory related to "disturbances" from environmental changes caused by deforestation, increasing human population, large agriculture near bat territory, etc.

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