Two researchers have published a report in the journal Science in order to gain the attention of fellow scientists to initiate a more detailed study on the relation between bats and the spread of various viruses.
The researchers believe that instead of finding why these nocturnal creatures play a vital role in spreading the viruses, scientists should rather focus on how they spread it.
Daniel G. Streicker, a vampire bat researcher at the University of Glasgow, and Amy T. Gilbert, a disease ecologist at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, carried the report.
The report read: “Immunological traits have been proposed to allow bats to control viruses differently from other animals. However, incomplete baselines for broader comparisons across vertebrates and extensive immunological variation among bat species casts uncertainty on their distinctiveness as viral reservoirs.”
The researchers also believe that the scientists who claim that bats nurture more viruses than other animals lack data to support their claim.
Diverse species
They added that the reason why bats transmit most viruses is because of their diverse species.
They wrote: “Bats (order Chiroptera) comprise ∼1400 species that split from the remaining members of the Scrotifera (carnivores, pangolins, cetaceans, and odd- and even-toed ungulates) over 60 million years ago.”
Study author Streicker said in a statement: “We seem to be lacking really strong, compelling evidence that the viruses of bats are more diverse or more prone to infect humans or more dangerous when they do infect humans than viruses of other animals.”
The authors stressed that researchers from different backgrounds should collaborate to put out a more detailed and diverse study on bats, considering all its species.
“We need interactions between immunologists, virologists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists (to examine better),” Streicker said.