Tens of thousands of people exposed to bat coronaviruses each year
▻https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02153-5
Every year, tens of thousands of people are silently infected with previously unknown bat coronaviruses related to the one that causes COVID-19, according to a study that maps ‘spillover’ hotspots across southeast Asia.
Bats often host viruses in the same family as SARS-CoV, which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19. These pathogens often go undetected, although they rarely spread in human populations. But with enough infection events, eventually some viruses will take off, says Stephanie Seifert, a virus ecologist at Washington State University in Pullman. The study, published in Nature Communications on 9 August1, “highlights how often these viruses have the opportunity to spillover”, she says.