Bats living among the orchards of Yunnan province in southwest China have been found harboring a variety of unknown pathogens in their kidneys, including two that are closely related to the deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses.
The discovery was made by a team of scientists led by Guopeng Kuang from the Yunnan Institute of Endemic Disease Control and Prevention and Tian Yang from Dali University in China, who used genetic analysis to identify microbes in 142 bats from 10 different species. They found 20 new viruses in total, along with a new bacterium and a new protozoan parasite.
The viruses of concern are both henipaviruses, which are known for their long genomes and wide range of hosts. More than half of the new viruses’ genes match those of the Nipah and Hendra viruses, which, while highly lethal to humans who are infected, are relatively rare among our species.
It’s unclear whether these two new henipaviruses have the genetic machinery to cross from bats to other species, but their similarity to known human pathogens means scientists will be keeping a close eye on them.
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“These viruses are particularly concerning because they were predominantly found in bat kidneys, a site linked to urine production, raising alarm about potential human exposure via contaminated fruits or water (routes implicated in previous outbreaks),” says molecular virologist Vinod Balasubramaniam from Monash University in Malaysia, who was not involved in the study.
That the bats were captured in fruit orchards means that if the viruses were capable of jumping between species, humans and domestic animals would make easy targets.
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But bats are also an important asset to orchards: they can pollinate fruits, fertilize soil, and prey on insects. For instance, 90 percent of bats in China that are insectivorous save the country’s apple farmers an estimated US$2 billion in crop losses each year.
As University of Sydney veterinarian and wildlife disease ecologist Alison Peel, who was also not involved in the study, points out: “We have other examples of close evolutionary cousins to Hendra and Nipah that appear not to be of any concern for spillover, so there will need to be some more laboratory studies on these new viruses to determine the actual risk.”
The research is published in PLOS Pathogens.
