New Research: Bats Harbor Hundreds Of Coronaviruses, And Spillovers Aren't Rare
The coronavirus outbreak in China seems like an unusual event. But scientists have found that similar viruses have been quietly jumping from bats into humans for years.
Three years ago, NPR accompanied disease ecologist Kevin Olival on a field trip to Malaysian Borneo.
Olival, who is with the nonprofit research group EcoHealth Alliance, was there to trap bats and collect samples of their body fluids. He and his collaborators would then test the samples for viruses. Bats are known for carrying some dangerous ones, particularly viruses that have the potential to kick off global outbreaks through what's called "spillovers" — instances of an animal virus jumping into a human.
So the researchers were on a hunt for the
