Lastly, Group 3 viruses included Rio Bravo virus (RBV), Dakar bat virus (DBV), and Entebbe bat virus (ENTV) that were exclusive to bats.
In 2003, a previously unknown bat virus in China began to cause SARS in humans.
One ecological driver of bat virus transmission is development in the flying foxes' natural habitat.
The French suspect the virus might have jumped to humans from bats, since it is similar to a bat virus, but other animals are being looked at.
SARS itself is believed to have been originally a bat virus, which was passed to civets, possibly in the wild, and thence to people from civets being sold for food in street markets.
This suggests that the ancestor of the civet and human strains was a bat virus!
The bat was also seropositive for Lagos bat virus, a Lyssavirus, by virus neutralization test.
Research into bat biology, immunology in particular, and bat-virus interaction will provide valuable insights into the mechanisms of infection and pathogenesis, and may lead to novel approaches to manage and prevent bat virus disease outbreaks affecting animals and humans.
Additionally, four new lyssavirus genotypes that infect bats in central and southeast Asia have been proposed: Aravan virus, Khujand virus, Irkut virus and West Caucasian Bat virus [8], [9].
In 2003, a new bat virus, West Caucasian bat virus, was reported in Europe (2 ).
The highly atypical Tamana bat virus (TABV) was also characterized.
