NEW PUB: Bat-Borne Sarbecoviruses Spilled Over in Southeast Asia Pre-Pandemic
Study Underscores Importance of Surveillance in Rural, High-Risk Areas
A virus previously found only in bats was detected in the antibodies of people screened for exposure to sarbecoviruses between 2017 and 2020 in rural Myanmar in Southeast Asia, according to a study from the University of California, Davis and collaborators in Myanmar and Singapore. The work is published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Sarbecoviruses are a group of coronaviruses. This study found exposure to diverse sarbecoviruses, including some known to be closely related to SARS-CoV-2, such as RaTG13.
The study found that people were significantly more likely to have been exposed to sarbecoviruses if their livelihood involved working directly with or close to bats, such as logging, hunting or harvesting bat guano.
“This study provides new evidence that bat-borne coronaviruses can and do spill over to people, underscoring the importance of surveillance in high-risk rural areas, where humans and wildlife closely interact,” said lead author Tierra Smiley Evans, an epidemiologist and research faculty with the One Health Institute in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.