A Sydney veterinary scientist has warned that people should not be exposed to bat camps.
The warning comes as scientists discover six new viruses in bats in Myanmar in South East Asia.
The Global Health Program behind the research is associated with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.
The United States Agency for International Development was involved in funding the initiative aimed at identifying infectious diseases in animals that could potentially spread to humans.
Scientists believe there is growing evidence that coronaviruses are able to jump species and humans aren’t immune from a potential smorgasbord of diseases.
While the viruses found in bats in Myanmar are different to COVID-19, responsible for deaths here in Australia and around the world, it’s understood they are in the same family.
Limiting our exposure to bats is considered the best way to prevent transfer of such viruses in the first instance.
Because of their unique immune systems, bats are capable of carrying an array of serious diseases that can potentially pose serious risks to humans.
“I guess the bottom line is bats are the most diverse species in the world,” veterinary scientist, Associate Professor David Phalen, from the University of Sydney, said.
“There are lots of different bats so they’re going to have lots of different viruses.
“Bats are different to other species, viruses live in bats and stay in them, but they’re unable to get sick. They shed those viruses for a long time, but they have no impact on them.”
Professor Phalen said the rabies virus, lyssavirus and Hendra virus have been found in bats in Australia.
Infection has been found in species of the grey-headed flying foxes, like those that reside on the Mitchell River in Bairnsdale.
Bats are reservoirs for a number of other viruses, like SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, that “potentially can get into people”, according to Prof Phalen.
“It goes from one animal into another and that is likely to get into humans,” Professor Phalen said, referencing how Hendra virus leapt from bats into horses and then humans in the 1994 outbreak in Queensland in which horse trainer, Vic Rail, died.
In 1997, in New South Wales, a colony of bats infected pigs with the Menangle virus causing an outbreak of severe reproductive failure and congenital defects. The zoonotic virus caused two farm workers to become seriously sick with a febrile illness.
Professor Phalen said while rabies and lyssavirus cases in Australia involved people being exposed to a bite or a scratch from a bat were rare, he said it was advisable that people not be exposed to contact with bats.
He says there is also the potential for people exposed to bat saliva or faeces to become infected through a chain of transfer. Bats feed on fruits but Professor Phalen said “suck the juice and spit the leftovers on the ground”.
He says horses or other animals can eat the grass and ingest the leftover fruit and spittle dropped by the bats.
Professor Phalen said bats excrement can also be ingested by animals grazing under trees where bats reside so “they may get it that way”.
“You need to take obvious precautions. No-one should be walking into, or near, flying fox camps where they could be exposed to bat urine and faeces,” he said.
“There shouldn’t be exposure to those camps. We don’t want to cohabit with that. We should definitely be cautious and not exposing ourselves to their urine and faeces.
“It’s certainly not ideal if they’re (flying foxes) roosting in your backyard,” Professor Phalen said also cautioning that other animals should be kept well away from the colony.
“I would say to you that there should be a safe distance from people’s houses and where the bats are roosting.
“If the camps spread and bats start to use trees in people’s backyards to roost, that’s far from ideal.”
He says dogs and cats in backyards could be exposed to the bats.
“We don’t want dogs and cats coming into contact with bat faeces or urine as a general precaution,” Prof Phalen said.
Former Riverine Street resident, John Glynn, who was a founding member of the Riverine Bat Cluster Group, which has now gone into recess, told the Advertiser his neighbour’s dog died of rabies-type symptoms a few years ago.
bat poo off their verandah.
Mr Glynn also had two cats die from respiratory issues.
He said the bats would fly across the road and take strawberries off the tree.
“They frequently roost in the trees in neighbours properties,” he said.
Mr Glynn and his wife, Julie, have now sold their Riverine Street house.
He told the Advertiser he couldn’t be more pleased to “have left the benefits of the native wildlife of Riverine Street”, in a tongue in check reference to the bats.
Mr Glynn said there are 76 towns along the eastern seaboard that are dealing with this issue and “it’s a disgrace that people’s interests aren’t being put first”.
“People are walking along the footpath (in Riverine Street) and getting peed on.”
Professor Phalen said while he understood there are “a lot of people in Australia and around the world who are very fond of flying foxes”, there was a need to exercise common sense to ensure people’s exposure to bats was limited.
Professor Phalen said the New South Wales Government has a detailed policy in place where people can apply to have the flying foxes relocated, so every community has a right to have the bats moved.
He said Victoria had moved bats out of the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne.
“It’s always good to be safe,” Professor Phalen said.
Professor Phalen’s research colleague at the University of Sydney, Professor Edward Holmes, is considered a leading expert on the virus that causes COVID-19.
He is presently working on the coronavirus pandemic response and was unavailable for interview, but recently told a Melbourne newspaper “that bats have been carrying these viruses for millennia. It’s not them that’s changed, it’s us – the way we interact with them.”
He said humans needed to change the way in which they interact with the animal world.
“It’s an accident waiting to happen, and it happened,” Professor Holmes said.
IMAGE: Bairnsdale’s bats, which largely reside on the riverbank in Riverine Street, have divided the community with some saying they should be moved on and others arguing they have a right to stay. K290-6117
