In China, an epic bat hunt for the origin of SARS led to a remote cave in Yunnan, a cave that Chinese scientists claim to be the place with “all the necessary building blocks for SARS” upon sequencing of 15 viral strains. This is a virus that led to a 2002 outbreak, resulting in approximately 800 deaths worldwide. To date, there have been no reported cases of SARS-CoV worldwide since 2004. In this particular cave, the Chinese scientists found no strain that was identical with the SARS virus itself, but the high mixing of strains in the caves between the bats could potentially yield another virus strain that is infectious to humans. The way that the bats were monitored included taking guano samples and anal swabs for a period of five years. This cave is approximately 1kilometer away from the nearest village Guangdong but in 2002 there were cases of SARS around 1,000km away from Guangdong, so how exactly did the bats travel 1,000 kilometers when the first outbreak of SARS occurred in 2002?
Well, the bats themselves do not have to travel 1,000 kilometers themselves, although they theoretically could, but the particular bat species of interest are also suspected of infecting masked palm civets. These civets, the Chinese scientists found, are sold in Guangdong animal markets, and in some instances contained strains that shared some genetic similarity to that of SARS strains although they lacked the genes necessary to latch on to and infect human cells. Thus, this mode of transmission explains how the SARS outbreak of 2002 could have possibly begun, although confirmation in lab, where infection from bat to civet is confirmed, would be highly informative.
As for now, the Chinese scientists will continue to keep a close eye on these bat populations, and will continue to research the virus strains present in the caves extensively.
Sources:
-Daniel Gutierrez
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