Centre for Viral Zoonoses, Department of Medical Virology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa.
UMR Processus Infectieux en Milieu Insulaire Tropical, 97490, Sainte-Clotilde, Reunion Island, France.
Sci Rep. 2021 Dec 20;11(1):24262. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-03641-w.
Bat-borne viruses in the Henipavirus genus have been associated with zoonotic diseases of high morbidity and mortality in Asia and Australia. In Africa, the Egyptian rousette bat species (Rousettus aegyptiacus) is an important viral host in which Henipavirus-related viral sequences have previously been identified. We expanded these findings by assessing the viral dynamics in a southern African bat population. A longitudinal study of henipavirus diversity and excretion dynamics identified 18 putative viral species circulating in a local population, three with differing seasonal dynamics, and the winter and spring periods posing a higher risk of virus spillover and transmission. The annual peaks in virus excretion are most likely driven by subadults and may be linked to the waning of maternal immunity and recolonization of the roost in early spring. These results provide insightful information into the bat-host relationship that can be extrapolated to other populations across Africa and be communicated to at-risk communities as a part of evidence-based public health education and prevention measures against pathogen spillover threats.
在亚洲和澳大利亚，亨尼帕病毒属中的蝙蝠传播病毒与高发病率和死亡率的人畜共患病有关。在非洲，埃及果蝠（Rousettus aegyptiacus）是一种重要的病毒宿主，此前已在该宿主中鉴定出与亨尼帕病毒相关的病毒序列。我们通过评估南部非洲蝙蝠种群中的病毒动态，扩展了这些发现。对亨尼帕病毒多样性和排泄动态的纵向研究确定了当地种群中循环的 18 种推定病毒，其中 3 种具有不同的季节性动态，冬季和春季期间病毒溢出和传播的风险更高。病毒排泄的年度高峰很可能是由亚成体驱动的，可能与母体免疫减弱和早春栖息地重新殖民有关。这些结果提供了有关蝙蝠-宿主关系的有见地的信息，可外推至非洲其他地区的种群，并作为基于证据的公共卫生教育和预防措施的一部分，向高危社区传达，以应对病原体溢出威胁。
