Viruses in bats and potential spillover to animals and humans

Highlights • Bats are a very important source of emerging viruses. • Bat coronavirus, filovirus, paramyxovirus and reovirus are known zoonotic viruses. • Many of the emergent bat viruses are highly lethal in livestock and humans. • Past incidents and viral genetic features predict bat coronaviruses as the highest risk.
In the last two decades, several high impact zoonotic disease outbreaks have been linked to bat-borne viruses. These include SARS coronavirus, Hendra virus and Nipah virus. In addition, it has been suspected that ebolaviruses and MERS coronavirus are also linked to bats. It is being increasingly accepted that bats are potential reservoirs of a large number of known and unknown viruses, many of which could spillover into animal and human populations. However, our knowledge into basic bat biology and immunology is very limited and we have little understanding of major factors contributing to the risk of bat virus spillover events. Here we provide a brief review of the latest findings in bat viruses and their potential risk of cross-species transmission.