Bat Borne Diseases

A bat-borne disease is any infectious disease whose primary reservoir is any species of bat. It is not a coincidence that some of the deadly viral disease outbreaks in recent years like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory disorder (MERS), Ebola, Marburg and the new 2019-nCoV virus are speculated to be originated in bats. Rarely some bacterial and fungal diseases are also related to certain species of bats. Such illnesses are part of Zoonosis, which refers to the human diseases of animal origin. In this review we highlight some of the bat-borne diseases with emphasis on the viral outbreaks as bats world-wide harbor a greater proportion of viruses than several other groups of mammals.