CoronavirusWorldHow Do Bats Host Coronavirus Without Dying?

Bats are speculated to be hosts of coronavirus, but what is unknown is how they are able to harbor the virus without being harmed like humans.

Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) have discovered how bats carry the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) – part of the coronavirus family and a cousin of SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19 – without getting sick.

While camels are the known intermediate hosts of MERS-CoV, bats are suspected to be the ancestral host.

“The bats don’t get rid of the virus and yet don’t get sick. We wanted to understand why the MERS virus doesn’t shut down the bat immune responses as it does in humans,” Immunology and Microbiology from Technology Network quotes Vikram Misra, the corresponding author as saying.

The new study, published in Nature Scientific Reports, revealed that instead of the MERS virus destroying the insect-eating bat, it forms a relationship where it is sustained by the bat’s system. The researchers also believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 to behave in the same way.

“Instead of killing the bat cell as the virus does with human cells, the MERS coronavirus enters a long-term with the host, maintained by the bat’s unique ‘super’ immune system.

“When exposed to the MERS virus, bat cells adapt — not by producing inflammation-causing proteins that are hallmarks of getting sick, but rather by maintaining a natural antiviral response, a function which shuts down in other species, including humans. Simultaneously, the MERS virus also adapts to the bat host cells by very rapidly mutating one specific gene,” Misra said.

This relationship allows the virus to exist in the bat, harmlessly, for at least four months – as discovered in a 2017 study by USask – until stresses on bats such as wet markets, other diseases, and possibly habitat loss rattle the equilibrium, causing the coronavirus to spill to other species.

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Adeola Oladipupo (Correspondent)

Adeola has been to over seventeen states in Nigeria. In 2016, he wrote and voiced a story about an experience he had in one of the states for the British Broadcasting Corporation World Service Radio. A graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, where he studied Sociology, Adeola is a published academic researcher. He worked at theDailyPost , a copywriting firm based in the UK. Some of his articles have been published by top news media in Nigeria including ThisDay and Daily Trust Newspapers

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