Shortly after the outbreak of the corona epidemic, accusations began to be heard among the public, and also among the scientific community, claiming that bats are considered a threat to our health due to the fact that they are ‘hoarders and spreaders of viruses’, including the corona virus. A new study by Tel Aviv University rejects these explanations, which are not scientifically based and mislead the public. According to the researchers, in most cases the bats are not carriers of viruses, and in any case they have a very effective immune system that allows them to deal relatively easily with viruses that are considered deadly for other mammals. It may very well be possible to learn a thing or two from them about dealing with viruses.
Do not store diseases
The research was conducted under the leadership of Dr. Maya Weinberg from the laboratory of Prof. Yossi Yuval, head of the Segol School of Neuroscience and a faculty member at the School of Zoology and the Steinhart Museum of Nature. According to the researchers, there is indeed evidence that the origin of the potential ancient Covid virus was in bats. But on the other hand, to this day, two years after the epidemic first broke out, we still do not know for sure what the direct source of the Covid-19 variant is. The research team re-reviewed dozens of leading articles and studies in the field, and their conclusions were published in the prestigious ISience journal.
“The bats are often, mistakenly, seen as reservoirs of viral diseases, solely because they are serologically positive. That is, they have antibodies, which means that they survived the disease and developed an immune response to it. But then their bodies completely overcame the virus, got rid of it, and therefore He is no longer a carrier of the same virus,” explains Dr. Weinberg and continues, “However, in many cases, a virus similar to the human pathogen may be found in bats, but it is not pathogenic to humans.”
“We must study in depth the antiviral immunological abilities of bats, in order to obtain new and effective tools in humanity’s fight against viral diseases, aging and cancer”
Dr. Maya Weinberg and a friend
Ability to deal with viruses better than ours
To examine the general situation, the researchers performed a meta-analysis of the literature and examined the findings for more than 100 viruses for which bats were considered potential reservoirs, including the Ebola virus, SARS and COVID. “We found that in a significant proportion of cases (48%), this claim was based on the prevalence of antibodies or PCR tests, and not on the actual isolation of the identical viruses. Moreover, many of the reported isolations are not convincing: isolation of a virus alone is not sufficient to consider an animal as a reservoir, since A minimum amount of individuals in which the virus is isolated is also required in order to be considered a reservoir animal as well as an established way of transmission. Even the mere discovery of a certain virus in bats does not necessarily guarantee that spillover will occur, and many other biological, ecological and anthropogenic conditions must exist for such an event to occur,” D. R. Weinberg.
According to the researchers, in recent years there is more and more evidence that bats can deal with various viruses, even deadly ones, in a better way than humans and most other mammals. After more than a century of focusing on viruses that bats carry, it seems that the bat immune system is characterized by a restrained response during inflammatory processes.
“In our opinion, bats have developed an excellent balance between resistance and tolerance: an increased defense response of the host and immune tolerance through a number of different mechanisms. The comprehensive study we conducted casts great doubt on the possibility that the origin of the corona outbreak is in bats. The findings show the opposite picture, and according to this we must study in depth the abilities The antiviral immunology of bats. This way we can get new and effective tools in humanity’s fight against viral diseases, aging and cancer,” concludes Dr. Weinberg.