A Study on the Relationship between the Spread of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Bats

A Study on the Relationship between the Spread of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Bats

In recent years, the outbreak frequency of emerging infectious diseases increased and most of the outbreaks were related to wild animals. For example, rabies, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola virus disease (EVD) and so forth, may be transmitted to human by bats directly or indirectly. World Health Organization's advocacy on epidemic prevention concept of One Health advocates ecological health, so that environmental health, human and animal are all free from threats of diseases. Due to the special terrain and geographical location, bat diversity in Taiwan is the highest around the world. Therefore, to understand the relationship between bats and emerging infectious diseases is important. We reviewed related research of bats and emerging infectious diseases, including the important risk factors influencing the spread of emerging infectious diseases related to the biological characteristics and ecological habits of bats, and the epidemic situation of the bat-borne emerging infectious diseases and the present research progress. We explored the relationship between the spread of emerging infectious diseases and bats, as the reference of future investigation of the prevalence of bat-borne emerging infectious diseases, establishment of surveillance platform, set up a notify and test mechanism with standard and systematic process, and risk assessment.