title: Bats as reservoirs of severe emerging infectious diseases.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. Electronic address: 201413941@mail.sdu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hui-Ju
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. Electronic address: wenhonglingZ@sdu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hong-ling
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. Electronic address: zcmsdu@163.com.
authors.forename: Chuan-Min
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. Electronic address: chenfangfang5683@163.com.
authors.forename: Fang-Fang
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. Electronic address: jmsllm@163.com.
authors.forename: Li-Mei
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. Electronic address: liujw_2012@163.com.
authors.forename: Jian-wei
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China; Departments of Pathology and Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0609, USA; Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0609, USA. Electronic address: xuyu@utmb.edu.
authors.forename: Xue-Jie
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000821:virology*; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology*; D004197:Disease Reservoirs / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology*; D014780:Viruses / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*
keywords: Bat; Ebola; Emerging infectious diseases; Hendra; MERS; Natural reservoir; Nipah; SARS; Viruses