If the new coronavirus infects humans with respiratory tract complications, then it’s a fair question why the flying mammals are immune themselves. This is incredibly relevant since Chinese researchers found a clear coronavirus link between bats and people. If we can discover why bats do not get sick from coronavirus, this could help scientists develop a vaccine.
Details of Ground-Breaking Research in China
Earlier studies indicated bats are ‘reservoirs’ for a large number of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronaviruses. Moreover, some of their SARS viruses have potential to infect humans. The Chinese scientists applied these principles to the novel coronavirus clinical features that appeared in Wuhan on December 12, 2019.
They harvested full-length genome sequences from five new patients and found they were almost identical. Furthermore, their sequence identity was 79.5% similar to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. Moreover, and this is breaking news the new 2019-nCoV coronavirus is 96% similar to a bat coronavirus. It also uses the same cell entry receptor as the SARS strain.
So Why Do Bats Not Get Sick from Coronavirus?
Both Ebola and Napah viruses may have crossed to humans from bats. The SAR virus travelled from bats to civet mongeese sold in food markets. The MERS strain jumped from bats to camels and people drink their milk. Bats carry a large variety of 130 viruses some of which humans are vulnerable to due to their own behavior.
A bat’s body temperature reaches over 100 ºF / 38 ºC during flight. Its heart rate can spike to 1,000 beats a minute, says Linfa Wang at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. This would kill most other mammals. It is therefore likely bats have special molecules to repair damage.
These molecules may help them manage infections better than humans can. Perhaps that is why bats do not get sick from coronavirus but we are not sure yet.
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Preview Image: How the Nipah Virus Spread
Research Report: https:/-/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32015507
