By Merlin Tuttle

6/13/17

The June 12, 2017 story by Amy Maxmen, titled “Bats are global reservoir for deadly coronaviruses,” published in Nature, continues the needlessly sensational presentation of bats as exceptionally dangerous animals. By simple insertion of the words “global” and “deadly” in the title, it implies bats worldwide to be a serious menace to human health.

The article begins by stating that “Bats are the major animal reservoir for coronaviruses worldwide….” In the reported study, nearly twice as many bats as rodents, shrews, and primates combined were examined, not surprising. The emphasis on easily captured bats, likely centered on colonial species, is an approach that appears to have become the norm. And it’s impossible to know the extent of resulting bias.

Late in the article, it is admitted that at least some of the newly discovered coronaviruses pose no “immediate threat to human health,” though insertion of the word “immediate” still implies they may be in the future. Because only a small fraction of coronaviruses infect humans, diversity in bats is not necessarily an indicator of risk.

At the end, where least likely to be noticed, it is admitted that such exhaustive searches for new viruses may be a waste of resources. Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, is quoted as saying “that researchers and politicians should direct their limited resources towards halting new outbreaks of pathogens that are known to be deadly in people, rather than trying to predict which virus will be the next to cross over to humans.”

Osterholm is further quoted that “We aren’t much better prepared for Ebola today than we were during the crisis in West Africa, so you have to wonder if we aren’t preparing for the outbreaks we know will happen in the near future, what good does it do to know about spillover events?”

Since bats appear to have an exceptionally good record of not causing disease outbreaks in humans, even where large colonies share major cities with us, Osterholm’s point seems strong.