Seven things to know about bats and the risk of a pandemic

For millennia, bat viruses have lurked in the forests of West Africa, India, South America and other parts of the world. But, unfazed, they posed little threat to humanity.

Not anymore, according to a new analysis of Reuters data. Today, as more and more people invade bat habitat, bat-borne pathogens represent an epidemiological minefield in 113 countries where the risk of a virus jumping between species and infecting humans is high.

Bats are linked to many of the deadliest disease outbreaks in the past half-century , including the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed at least seven million people and has its roots in a family of bat-borne coronaviruses. Although scientists are still trying to figure out how this virus came to infect humans, dozens of other outbreaks can be traced to human incursions into areas teeming with bats.

To examine where the next pandemic might emerge, Reuters used two decades of disease outbreaks and environmental data to identify the places on the planet most vulnerable to ‘zoonotic spills’ , the term for when a virus jumps from one species to another. Viruses pass from bats to humans via an intermediate host, such as a pig, chimpanzee or civet cat, or more directly through human contact with urine, feces, blood or saliva bats.

Reuters reporters spoke to dozens of scientists, read extensive academic research and traveled to bat-rich countries around the world to learn how human destruction of nature amplifies pandemic risk . Our data analysis, the first of its kind, has revealed a global economic system colliding with nature and putting people’s health at risk as bat-rich forests are cleared to make way for farms, mines , roads and other developments.

Here are the key takeaways from our review:

1) Reuters found more than nine million square kilometers on Earth where conditions in 2020 were conducive to the spread of a bat-borne virus , possibly triggering another pandemic. These zones, which we’ve dubbed “jump zones,” span the globe and cover 6% of Earth’s land mass. These are mostly tropical places rich in bats and experiencing rapid urbanization.

2) Nearly 1.8 billion people, more than one in five of us lived in areas at high risk of spread in 2020 . This represents 57% more people living in drop zones than two decades ago, increasing the chances that a deadly bat virus could spread. Additionally, these people live closer together, increasing the chances of a disease outbreak becoming a fast-spreading global pandemic.

3) Reuters analysis found a high risk of contagion in places like China, where Covid-19 emerged; neighboring Laos, where scientists have identified the closest relatives in wildlife of the virus responsible for the current pandemic; India, where 500 million people live in rapidly expanding hotspots, the most of any nation; And Brazil, which has the most land at risk of any country, as humans ravage the Amazon .

4) The catalyst for epidemics is not the behavior of bats, scientists say, but ours. The thirst for resources (iron ore, gold, cocoa and rubber, to name a few) drives the uncontrolled development of wild areas and increases the risk of global pandemics. s through increased contact with animals, say scientists. The world’s drop zones have lost 21% of their tree cover in nearly two decades, twice the global rate.

5) Pressure on once-isolated forests gives viruses a chance to spread and mutate as they hop between animal species and eventually humans. In recent decades, the deadly Nipah virus has spread from Asian fruit bats to pigs, and from pigs to humans. More recently, Nipah has been shown to be able to infect humans directly through contact with bat body fluids.

6) LHumanity is destroying crucial habitats before scientists have time to study them. Development not only brings people closer to pathogens that could have pandemic potential; it also removes secrets that nature may hold that could be valuable to science. For example, the ability of bats to live with multiple viruses, without succumbing to many viruses that can be deadly to other mammals, could lead to important information for the creation of vaccines, drugs or other innovations. .

7) Governments and companies do little to assess risk. In bat-rich countries Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana, where Reuters found the risk of a pandemic to be among the highest in the world, pending applications would double the territory used for mineral exploration and extraction, to a total of 400,000 square kilometers, an area larger than Germany. Almost a third of that expansion would be in existing drop zones, where the risk of contagion is already high. Although these countries require mining companies to assess the potential environmental damage that new concessions could cause, none require companies to assess the risk of contagion.