Search

SUMMARY Bats are a speciouse order of mammals. The species belonging to this group have very diverse roosting and feeding habits and they also host numerous viruses. Due to significant outbreaks of SARS- Hendra-, Nipah- and Ebola-viruses in the first decade of the 21st century, bats are in the focus of virologists. Flying mammals are the primary reservoirs of these important viruses; and many other zoonotic and non-zoonotic viruses were also found in bats. As a result of the intensive bat virus research of the past few years in Hungary, from the 28 resident bat species 17 were found to be infected with at least one bat-related virus. These viruses belong to 8 virus families and the number of species which host more than one virus is also significant. Hungary is one of the well-studied countries in the world in case of bat-related viruses.