Thursday 21 November 2013

Fruit Bat Population Covering Central Africa Carries Two Deadly Viruses

Nov. 19, 2013 — The study, conducted jointly by the University of Cambridge and the Zoological Society of London's Institute of Zoology and published today in the journal Nature Communications, found that the "gregarious" bats span over 4,500 km of central Africa (around the distance from California to New York). The researchers also discovered that thirty-four per cent of the bats had been infected with Lagos bat virus, a disease similar to rabies, and 42 per cent had been infected with henipaviruses.

The African straw-coloured fruit bat (Eidolon helvum), which can live in roosts of over one million and often congregates near cities, was previously known to be a reservoir for these viruses, but it was not known to what extent.

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