The role of bats as reservoir hosts of emerging neurological viruses

Abstract

It is now well-recognized that more than 75% of emerging diseases over the past 2 decades have been zoonoses. Many of these zoonotic viruses have caused neurological disease, especially those emerging during this period in the South-East Asian and Western Pacific regions [1, 2]. Most of the diseases emerging from wildlife have been from bats and rodents. Bats are only second to rodents in terms of mammalian species richness [3] and constitute about 20% of all mammalian species. Thus, with their wide distribution and abundance, it is not surprising that there is growing awareness that bats are the reservoir hosts for a number of these emerging viruses [4, 5, 6, 7] and suspected of being associated with many others on serological grounds. Not only have they been shown to be the reservoir hosts for rabies and related lyssaviruses but also for other human pathogens, or potential pathogens, such as SARS-coronavirus-like viruses [8, 9, 10], Ebola virus [11, 12], Menangle virus [13], and Hendra and Nipah viruses [14, 15, 16]. This brief review looks at the biological features that make bats good reservoir hosts, and the more important neurological viruses associated with bats that are, or have the potential to be, transmitted to humans.