Review of Bats and SARS

Review of Bats and SARS

Lin-Fa Wang, Zhengli Shi, Shuyi Zhang, Hume E. Field, Peter Daszak, Bryan T. Eaton

Bats have been identified as a natural reservoir for an increasing number of emerging zoonotic viruses, including henipaviruses and variants of rabies viruses. Recently, we and another group independently identified several horseshoe bat species (genus Rhinolophus) as the reservoir host for a large number of viruses that have a close genetic relationship with the coronavirus associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Our current research focused on the identification of the reservoir species for the progenitor virus of the SARS coronaviruses responsible for outbreaks during 2002–2003 and 2003–2004. In addition to SARS-like coronaviruses, many other novel bat coronaviruses, which belong to groups 1 and 2 of the 3 existing coronavirus groups, have been detected by PCR. The discovery of bat SARS-like coronaviruses and the great genetic diversity of coronaviruses in bats have shed new light on the origin and transmission of SARS coronaviruses.

2006

emerging zoonoses, SARS, coronavirus, bats, animal reservoir, spillover

DOI: 10.3201/eid1212.060401

Emerging Infectious Diseases

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Infectious and parasitic diseases, Medicine

EN