Just leave them alone! The argument was common sense. But as this is not, with all due respect to the philosopher, the best shared thing in the world, scientists were waiting for a demonstration. It is now done. In two articles published on November 16 in the journal Nature and October 30 in Ecology Lettersan international team led by Raina Plowright, professor of medical ecology at Cornell University in the United States, has just highlighted “the cascade of events that leads, from habitat loss associated with climate oscillations, to the emergence of a virus”.
For this, the researchers did not study the now famous couple SARS-CoV-2 and horseshoe bat. Too new, but also still too poorly known, since we have not yet found the intermediate host that would have allowed the virus to pass from bats to humans. They have set their sights on the flying fox (pteropus) and its formidable visitor: the Hendra virus. The first takes its name from its imposing mass (more than a kilo, which is a lot for a bat) and its red mane; the second is distinguished by its dangerousness. More than 75% of horses that have had the imprudence to graze grass infected with its urine die. And when humans in turn become infected, a fortunately very rare event to date, the mortality rate is 57%.