Bats have the codes for SARS epidemic
MEDICINE Since 2002, scientists have been searching for the host animal behind the SARS epidemic that killed 800 people globally over a period of two years and made many more ill.
According to Chinese scientists Shi Zheng-Li and Cui Jie from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the culprit is a population of horse-shoe bats discovered in a cave in the Yunnan Province.
Over five years, scientists took samples from bat guano. Studies showed that the bats carry versions of the SARS virus which are very much like the one that claimed human lives in the early 2000s. By sequencing the genes of 15 different viruses, the scientists learned that all the building blocks of the human version of the virus exist in the horseshoe bats from the Yunnan Province.
One of the populations with virus ingredients for triggering a new SARS epidemic lives only 1 km from the closest village, and the risk of a new outbreak is evident, the scientists warn.
The first case registered when the SARS virus broke out, was in the city of Guangdong – 1,000 km from the caves, where the scientists discovered bats with the building blocks of the disease. Consequently, the team behind the study believes that there must be more bat populations that have virus codes. The scientists continue to search for hosts, so the world can avoid another outbreak.