Incidence of Viruses in Neotropical Bats

Revising the paradigm: Are bats really pathogen reservoirs or do they possess an efficient immune system?

“…Moreover, the seroprevalence of Ebola antibodies in bat population is quite low—∼3% ( Yuan et al., 2012 ; Olival et al., 2013 ). Many epidemiologists would argue that such a low prevalence is insufficient for considering the species a reservoir animal ( Scott, 2001 ; Drexler et al., 2014 ; Markotter et al., 2020 ; De Oliveira and Bonvicino, 2020 ). In comparison, if we take a known case of a reservoir animal, such as birds and avian flu or the West-Nile virus, we expect to find much higher rates of seroprevalence as well as to find both IgG and the isolation of viable viruses ( Shortridge et al., 1998 ; Alexander, 2007 ; Travis, 2008 ; Wodak et al., 2011 ).…”