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After the SARS epidemic in 2003, then the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020, scientists are taking a close interest in the means that could make it possible to mitigate the risk of global pandemics, and the waves of deaths that accompany them. A team of American researchers may have found a solution as simple as it was unexpected, but probably effective: leave the bats alone.
Can bats save the world? A quick shortcut, no doubt, but these small mammals could nevertheless reduce the risk of global pandemics, such as the one that began in 2020 and caused nearly seven million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Provided, however, to leave them alone. This is what scientists who have studied the subject recommend. Note, however, that this is not a study, but an analysis presented by a team of experts from Cornell University and the Wildlife Conservation Society in the United States, and published in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health.
Do Not Disturb Bats
In this analysis, experts suggest that undisturbing bats, and undisturbing them by modifying or affecting their habitat, is paramount to mitigating the risk of global pandemics. An idea which may make you smile, but which in reality could not be more serious, if only because bats are reservoirs for a large number of viruses which can be transmitted to other species whose human: the rabies virus, Ebola, the Marburg virus, the Sras coronavirus, Sars-CoV-2 or the Nipah virus.
“In a globalized world of eight billion people, we can no longer ignore our interconnectedness with the wildlife and ecosystems around us. We must change humanity’s relationship with nature if we are to prevent the next coronavirus pandemic. zoonotic origin, and it can start with bats,” says Susan Lieberman, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, in charge of international policy, in a press release.
Limit the spread of zoonoses
So many reasons that lead scientists today, not to point the finger at the role of bats in the emergence of certain pandemics, but that of humanity, which must take “the most elementary and sensible measures “. And that would go above all through the need to leave the bats alone. More concretely, the analysis suggests stopping the use, trade, and consumption of bats, but it would also be a question of stopping hunting them, and no longer touching their habitat so as not to disturb them. . The idea is to stop all activities likely to cause their dispersal, and therefore increase the risk of spreading zoonoses, diseases or infections that are transmitted from animals to humans.
“If we can actually stop hunting, eating and trading bats, stay away from their caves, keep livestock away from areas where bats are concentrated, and if we can stop clearing, degrade – or even begin to restore – their natural habitats, we can definitely reduce the risk of another pandemic“, concludes Steven A. Osofsky, professor at Cornell University, in a press release.
Bats are a priority because, as we have seen, they are considered to be reservoirs for many viruses, but the experts point out, however, that this observation concerns many other wild species. Something that should be examined by researchers in the coming weeks and months.