What Makes Bats The Perfect Hosts For So Many Viruses?
Bats have been known to host up to 137 different kinds of viruses. Photo via PD-USGov.
Bats are mammals that have forelimbs adapted as wings; as such, they are the only mammals that are naturally capable of sustained flight. Bats are often associated with horror stories, vampires and haunted houses. For the most part, these creatures are misunderstood. Other than being the only mammal that can fly, bats are the perfect hosts for a lot of disease-causing viruses. Bats have been known to carry rabies, Hendra and Marburg viruses, and research has also suggested that bats may be the original hosts of Ebola and Nipah.
The Marburg virus and some strains of the Ebola virus can kill up to 90% of humans infected. India’s Kerala state has just faced an outbreak of the Nipah virus and seventeen people have died so far. This may seem like a small number, but only one of the eighteen people infected survived. For a number of these viruses hosted by bats, there is no known cure or vaccine, which means that doctors can only offer supportive treatment while the patient’s immune system fights off the virus.
When it comes to carrying viruses that can be transferred to other species including humans (so-called “zoonotic” viruses), bats are in a league of their own. These flying mammals host over 60 zoonotic viruses. This is rivaled only by rodents that carry a wide range of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and helminths (worms).
Researchers compiled and analyzed databases of every virus identified in bats and rodents. They found that rodents host 179 viruses, 68 of which are zoonotic, while bats carry 61 zoonotic viruses, with 137 viruses in total. So, rodents win by a slight margin in carrying more human-infecting viruses, but bats host more zoonotic viruses per species — on average, each species of bat hosts 1.8 zoonotic viruses, while rodents host 1.48 viruses per species.
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