In Ghana, where fruit bats have tested positive for antibodies to henipaviruses and Ebola virus, the status of bats as bushmeat was essentially unknown until we began our investigation five years ago.
AUTHORS
Alexandra Kamins
Research Analyst at the Colorado Hospital Association at Colorado Hospital Association
Marcus Rowcliffe
Research Fellow at Zoological Society of London
Olivier Restif
Royal Society University Research Fellow at University of Cambridge
http://theconversation.com/ebola-bats-get-a-bad-rap-when-it-comes-to-spreading-diseases-32785
Bats serve as a natural reservoir for the Ebola - but we cannot blame them for the epidemic. In Ghana alone people eat over 100,000 fruit bats a year as 'bushmeat', yet the country has escaped the epidemic. Much more research is needed to discover the mechanisms of transmission, and to devise effective, appropriate interventions.
Of all wildlife species, bats in particular pose complex questions. The second most diverse group of mammals after rodents, they host more than 65 known human pathogens, including Ebola virus, coronavirus (the cause of SARS), henipaviruses (which can cause deadly encephalitis in humans) and rabies.
But they are also one of the mammalian groups most vulnerable to overhunting and habitat destruction, while providing indispensable ecological functions such as pest control by bats that eat insects, pollination and seed dispersal.
But they are also one of the mammalian groups most vulnerable to overhunting and habitat destruction, while providing indispensable ecological functions such as pest control by bats that eat insects, pollination and seed dispersal.
The loss of bats, whether from hunting or for disease control almost certainly would have far-reaching and long-lasting ecological and economic consequences.
This much we know, and yet the details of how zoonoses spill over from bats into people are vastly understudied. Understanding how humans and bats interact had, until recently, never been examined in West Africa, and only peripherally probed elsewhere in the world. Uncovering behaviour that brings humans into contact with bats and other wildlife, and exposes people to zoonoses, could provide invaluable clues for preventing zoonotic outbreaks. To address these questions, we put together an international network of collaborators, led in the UK by the Zoological Society of London and the University of Cambridge.
From Malaysia to Ghana, from Australia to Peru, bats are coming into contact with humans more and more frequently as people are expanding into previously virgin territories.
Fruit bats are also often attracted to orchards and gardens planted on the edge of their territories. But another human behaviour contributes significantly to the risk of zoonotic spillover from all wildlife species: hunting. The consumption of bushmeat, or wild animal meat, is a global phenomenon on a massive scale – estimates of the combined bushmeat consumption in Central Africa and the Amazon Basin exceed 1 billion kilograms annually.
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