Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

HungerISanEmotion t1_j9j0ybu wrote

Reply to comment by DecafWriter in What makes bats a good disease vector? by JustJustinInTime

So viruses hoping from bats to humans have a greater potential to be deadly then viruses which hop from human to dogs. Wouldn't this create a bias because... viruses hoping from bats would get much more attention, and viruses hoping from dogs, pigs, cows would be mostly benign and remain undetected.

Or in other words, bats are not a good virus vector at all, instead they are a vector for deadly viruses.

17

foodfood321 t1_j9khwyy wrote

Iirc bats also manufacture large quantities of their own vitamin C in a symbiotic relationship with the viruses living mostly in their hair follicles and triggering vit C production as viral loads increase. Humans either don't make their own endogenous VitC or only make a miniscule amount

8

Nudelklone t1_j9ky4wn wrote

It‘s the other way round, they sound like a perfect reservoir for viruses. They might have benign viruses on top of the deadly ones in their system. Why should there be a selection for deadly ones if they are a great reservoir for virus amplification?

8