Bats as reservoirs of severe emerging infectious diseases

• Bats has been considered as natural reservoirs of several highly pathogenic viruses, including Ebola virus, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, Nipah virus, and Hendra viruses.
• Social, biological and immunological features of bats play an important role in virus maintenance and transmission.
• Spillover of viruses from bats to intermediate animal hosts are thought to be the most likely route to cause human infection.
• Social and cultural factors can drive the spread of bat-borne viruses in humans.

In recent years severe infectious diseases have been constantly emerging, causing panic in the world. Now we know that many of these terrible diseases are caused by viruses originated from bats (Table 1), such as Ebola virus, Marburg, SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Nipah virus (NiV) and Hendra virus (HeV). These viruses have co-evolved with bats due to bats’ special social, biological and immunological features. Although bats are not in close contact with humans, spillover of viruses from bats to intermediate animal hosts, such as horses, pigs, civets, or non-human primates, is thought to be the most likely mode to cause human infection. Humans may also become infected with viruses through aerosol by intruding into bat roosting caves or via direct contact with bats, such as catching bats or been bitten by bats.