Thread by @lovemoz1

🦠🦇#Zoonosis #Bats #Nipah #COVID19 #WomenInSTEM
H/T to @DanCady Excellent article.

1/ “The Reuters jump-zone analysis highlights a global trend that world leaders need to address “for the future of humanity…Nobody is safe-It will take no time MORE
reuters.com/investigates/s…

2/for a disease outbreak to reach anywhere in the world because of international travel & trade.”

The analysis is based on an examination of 95 spillovers in the past 2 decades of viruses found in bats, including Ebola, SARS, Marburg & Nipah. The news agency identified MORE

3/ > 9 million sq km in 113 countries where human alteration of sensitive landscapes has created conditions that closely match those around past spillovers.”

4/ “The expansion of human settlement in Kerala and worldwide has led to habitat loss, declining biodiversity and migration of animals closer to people, “which eventually helps the virus to jump from bats to humans.”

5/ “Compared w/prior known spillovers elsewhere in Asia, the outbreak was particularly deadly, killing 90% of those infected.

A 1998 outbreak in Malaysia killed~40% of its victims. Outbreaks in Bangladesh starting in 2001 have had an overall mortality rate of about👉70%.
MORE

6/Scientists who have studied the virus told Reuters they don’t know why more recent outbreaks have been more lethal. The Kerala strain is different from those that appeared in Bangladesh & Malaysia, Yadav said, but it’s not clear yet how that affects the virus’s MORE

7/infectiousness, deadliness or clinical course.

[ Those factors] have put Nipah on WHO’s short list of high-priority pathogens w/epidemic potential.
Scientists who study Nipah fear the virus will mutate (👈they mean evolve) & a more highly transmissible strain will emerge…MORE

8/ “I'd say, even more likely, is that it's👉out there already," said Raina Plowright, a scientist based at Cornell who has co-authored > 100 studies on bat viruses & spillover. “The more that we pressure these environments, the more likely these events are going to happen.” MORE

9/ “As development in risky areas continues apace, Nipah has found new places to spill over…Reuters visited 6 spillover sites, reviewed 100s of research papers, interviewed dozens of doctors, scientists, & relatives of Nipah victims. MORE

10/ “Near each outbreak, runaway development of the local economy had paved a pathway for a spillover.

In each case, the virus found it.”
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