Philippines: Studying bats might help prevent another pandemic
After dark in the Philippine province of Laguna, scientists use big nets to catch bats. They study the animals in an effort to prevent the next pandemic.
Casting their nets
The researchers, who call themselves "virus hunters," are out to catch thousands of bats for a simulation model. They hope that this will help them prevent another pandemic on the scale of the COVID-19 crisis in the future.
Untangling bats
In the dense rainforest, it can take hours for the "virus hunters" to find what they are looking for. Once they have detected the bats, they carefully place them in cloth bags so they can be examined and measured.
Swabbed for science
The researchers log all the details for further analysis, including saliva and fecal samples. Then, the animals are returned to the wild.
Avoid the next pandemic
"What we’re trying to look into are other strains of coronavirus that have the potential to jump to humans," according to Phillip Alviola, the ecologist who heads the science team that has studied bat viruses for more than a decade.
Isolate the viruses
"If we know the virus itself and we know where it came from, we know how to isolate that virus geographically," Phillip Alviola said.
More data needed
Researchers from the University of the Philippines in Los Banos, located about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of the capital, Manila, plan on continuing the Japan-funded project over the next three years. They hope that more information about bats will give them more insight into coronaviruses, also with regard to climate, temperature and how they transmit to humans.
Bat-borne viruses
"What we’re after is finding out if there are any more viruses from bats that can be transmitted to humans," Phillip Alviola said. Bat-borne viruses include pathogens like those that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS). The World Health Organization (WHO) suspects that bats may have been the first hosts of Sars-CoV-2.