“Evidence of cross-species filovirus transmission from bats to humans - EurekAlert” plus 2 more

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• Evidence of cross-species filovirus transmission from bats to humans - EurekAlert
• Students Design Self-Sanitizing Door Handle to Help Prevent Contagious Illnesses - My Modern Met
• Bats in Nagaland may carry Ebola viruses: Study - Deccan Herald

Evidence of cross-species filovirus transmission from bats to humans - EurekAlert Posted: 31 Oct 2019 08:00 PM PDT Infectious diseases spilling over from wildlife are not new - as of 2008, approximately 70 per cent of all known emerging diseases are thought to have originated from wild animals. In the last 50 years, several viruses, such as the Ebola, Marburg, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Hendra, swine flu, and Nipah have appeared in areas with close human-animal contact. Tropical areas where hunted wildlife often supplements the locals' meager diets - such as in Africa, South and Southeast Asia - are hotspots for pathogen spillovers. During such spillovers, viruses from hunted wild animals or 'bush meat' infect humans and can lead to large scale outbreaks. In Nagaland, bat-hunting is practised by the Bomrr, who are a clan of the Longpfurii Yimchungii sub-tribe. According to their narratives, the Bomrrs have held a bat-harvesting festival in mid-October every year for at least seven generations. "During the harvesting, which usually lasts for two to three days, the Bomrr smoke out entire caves in which the bats roost, and the hunters are often scratched and bitten by bats trying to escape the smoky cave, exposing them to viruses shed by the bats," says Pilot Dovih, the study's lead author. In this study, two species of bats as well as humans engaged in hunting these bats were found to have been exposed to viruses in the family Filoviridae, which includes Ebola and Marburg viruses. Although antibodies against two and three distinct filoviruses were found in the human and bat blood samples, respectively, no viral genetic material was detected in the samples. The pattern of reactivity of anti-filovirus antibodies carried by the humans were similar to those found in one bat species (Eonycteris spelaea), which makes these bats the most probable source of the viral spillover event. "Biodiversity, high human density, and changes in land use due to human activities make India a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases. That said, how do we scientifically study how spillovers happen?" asks NCBS professor Uma Ramakrishnan, who is Dovih's mentor, and co-author of the study. "Our results show that spillover events do not always result in outbreaks," she adds. "Bats are known to be natural reservoirs for several severe viral diseases, such as rabies, Marburg, and Nipah. However, these animals are an essential part of our ecosystem because they are major pest control, pollination, and seed dispersal agents," says Dr Ian Mendenhall, Principal Research Scientist from Duke-NUS' Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, who is the senior author of the study. Dr Mendenhall, who has studied animal reservoirs of infectious disease for the past 20 years, further adds, "We want to make sure that our work does not result in demonization of bats and emphasizes protecting their natural habitats." The team now plans to carry out additional investigations in another site in India where a similar harvesting event happens every year. Since such surveillance is expensive and time-consuming, the researchers are trying to develop more effective field and laboratory techniques for quick detection of viral spillovers. In addition, viral sequence data are also being investigated to understand the evolutionary history of these viruses, and their potential to cause outbreaks. The team has also expanded their sampling range to better determine the geographic distribution of the bats and their viruses. By discovering and characterising filoviruses across Southeast and South Asia, they hope to better understand why we have not (yet) witnessed a major bat-borne filovirus outbreak in this region. ### Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Students Design Self-Sanitizing Door Handle to Help Prevent Contagious Illnesses - My Modern Met Posted: 28 Oct 2019 02:00 PM PDT Public door handles are often teeming with harmful bacteria, particularly in places like restrooms. That's why University of Hong Kong graduates Sum Ming Wong and Kin Pong Li have designed a self-sanitizing door handle that uses UV light to kill germs. The designers were motivated to create a solution to unsanitary public surfaces after the devastating acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak between November 2002 and July 2003 in southern China. With 8,098 cases, it resulted in 774 deaths in 37 countries. "It infected thousands and killed hundreds here, and people started to notice the importance of public health as a result," say Wong and Li. "We knew that many infections can spread by contact, for example, SARS, MERS, Foot and Mouth Disease, and Candida auris." They designed a glass tube with aluminum caps, coated with powdered photocatalytic made from titanium dioxide. When exposed to UV light, a chemical reaction occurs causing the glass door handle to decompose bacteria. Kinetic energy from the continuous opening and closing of the door powers an internal generator, allowing the UV light to constantly shine. The innovative design provides an alternative to antibacterial gels and wipes. In fact, during lab tests, it destroyed an incredible 99.8% of microbes. Wong and Li's self-sanitizing door handle is one of the winning entries of the 2019 James Dyson Awards. The design is now in the final round of the competition, where it is up against some of the best student designs and engineering in the world. You might even start seeing self-sanitizing door handles in public spaces near you very soon. The designers say, "We are going to connect with public properties, for example shopping malls, hotels, hospitals and public toilets where have higher risk to spread out infection." You can find out even more about the self-sanitizing door handle on the James Dyson Awards wesbite. University of Hong Kong graduates Sum Ming Wong and Kin Pong Li have designed a self-sanitizing door handle that uses UV light to kill germs. All images via Sum Ming Wong and Kin Pong Li. Related Articles: World's First Smart Cutting Board Features Five Tools in One Streamlined Kitchen Gadget Door Handle Acts as Emergency Flashlight Incredible Book Features Pages That Purify Drinking Water

Bats in Nagaland may carry Ebola viruses: Study - Deccan Herald Posted: 01 Nov 2019 01:41 AM PDT Bats in some parts of northeast India's Nagaland state may harbour filoviruses, a family of viruses that includes the Ebola and Marburg viruses, putting people who hunt them at the risk of contracting deadly diseases, according to a recent study. The researchers, including Ian Mendenhall from Singapore as well as Pilot Dovih and Uma Ramakrishnan from Bangalore's National Centre for Biological Sciences, analysed the blood serum samples from bats hunted by people in Nagaland's Mimi village. The results of the study, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases on Thursday night, revealed that some bats sampled in the study may have been exposed to filoviruses as they found antibodies (proteins reactive to specific parts of an infective agent) in the serum taken from the bats. "In the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland, local ethnic groups have conducted bat harvests for at least seven generations as a source of food and traditional medicine. These bat hunters are exposed to saliva, blood, and excreta from the bat species Rousettus leschenaultii and Eonycteris spelaea," the researchers wrote in the study. The study calls for better community-based monitoring of bats in specific regions to prevent an epidemic outbreak in the future. "We report the presence of filovirus (e.g. ebolavirus, marburgvirus and dianlovirus) reactive antibodies in both human (e.g. bat hunters) and bat populations in Northeast India, a region with no historical record of Ebola virus disease," the researchers wrote in the study. Five of the 85 human serum samples taken from the villagers contained antibodies, they said. This meant there was evidence of immune reaction against three different filoviruses, they explained. "We have antibodies in the bats that react against three different filovirus surface proteins – these are the part of the virus against which most antibodies are made," study co-author Ian Mendenhall from the Duke-National University of Singapore told PTI in an email interview. "One is most likely Mengla virus, described earlier this year from a site in China 800 kilometres away, and in one of the same bat species in the harvest. The other two filoviruses are probably unknown," he added. However, the researchers said that they did not detect evidence of the filoviruses themselves. Mendenhall reasoned that this could either be due to the bat sample size in the study being small, due to a weak presence of the virus in the serum, or high genetic diversity of the filovirus family that is not captured by the tests employed. It is unknown if these viruses are pathogenic or if they are present in the bats without causing any symptoms, he added. "We are continuing our studies in this region to better understand their risk to public health," he said. The researchers said some factors prevented filovirus disease outbreaks in Asia. These included ecological barriers that prevented transmission of these viruses from animals to humans, the viruses being unable to sustain transmission between humans, or the presence of diverse, closely related filoviruses that cause infection without symptoms in humans. However, Mendenhall cautioned that any increase in bat-human contact can increase the risk of an infectious disease crossing over to humans. He said this may happen through changes in the landscape where humans and bats cohabit, leading to increased interactions with humans, or through amplifying hosts like livestock or other wildlife. "This was seen in the SARS Coronavirus outbreaks in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province China and the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia in 1999," he told PTI. The researchers cautioned that any contact infected bats may have with wild animals provides an opportunity for these viruses to jump the species barrier and start infecting new animal populations -- a phenomenon that researchers call a spillover infection. However, Mendenhall said the incidence of this is incredibly rare "as one requires a virus that encounters a susceptible host (e.g. a human – ecological barrier), is able to replicate in it (cellular barrier as it needs the right cellular receptor), and it needs to be transmitted from human to human (epidemiological barrier)". He said that it is still unknown if there is any increased risk of filovirus spillover in India since there is no evidence of a past outbreak in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Ebola and Marburg viruses are known to cause severe hemorrhagic fevers which affects many organs and damages the blood vessels, killing more than 50 per cent of people they infect.

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