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Bats passed SARS virus to civet cats: health expert

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 10:41 CDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A species of bats in China might have been the source of the SARS epidemic in 2003, a Chinese health expert said on Tuesday, adding that the creatures probably passed it to civet cats, which then passed it to humans.

Researchers in Hong Kong and China said last month that the horseshoe bat - a delicacy in southern Chinese cuisine and whose feces are used in traditional Chinese medicine - was a natural host of SARS-like viruses, meaning it could carry the bugs but not fall ill.

Zhong Nanshan, China's leading SARS expert, said these bats were stored in cages while waiting for buyers in wholesale markets in southern Guangdong province and may have easily passed on viruses to other species.

SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, began spreading in Guangdong in late 2002 and among its earliest victims was a chef who handled civet cats. There has however been no documented case of humans contracting SARS directly from horseshoe bats.

Hong Kong scientists have said the SARS virus jumped from civet cat to humans and quickly developed the ability to pass from person to person. The disease spread to about 30 countries in 2003 via air travel, killing some 800 people in all.

Zhong said civet cats farmed in other Chinese provinces such as central Hubei and Hunan and southern Guangxi were not found to carry the virus. But once they got to markets in Guangdong, up to 78 percent of them were found to be hosting the virus.

"So how did the civet cats get SARS? The view is horseshoe bats are a very important reservoir for SARS," Zhong said.

"Could it be that in the wild animal markets they were kept close to civet cats and then passed the virus to them?

"Guangdong's wild animal markets are a very important transmission ground for SARS," Zhong said.

He also described civets as playing the role of an "amplification tool" in the SARS epidemic. Once they contracted it, they spread it among themselves like wildfire.

Researchers have however not been able to determine how the bats were originally infected.

SARS is caused by a virus that belongs to the family of coronaviruses. Coronaviruses are common in people and animals and usually cause nothing more serious than a simple cold. But the SARS virus proved to be very deadly, and had a mortality rate of 10 percent in 2003.

Source: REUTERS

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