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Reuters
Reuters
Environment
By Ryan McNeill and Deborah J. Nelson

Seven things to know about bats and pandemic risk

A University of Brasilia bat researcher holds a bat captured for research in Brasilia, Brazil, June 28, 2021. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

For millennia, bat viruses lurked in forests across West Africa, India, South America and other parts of the world. But, undisturbed, they posed little threat to humanity.

No longer, a new Reuters data analysis found. Today, as more and more people encroach on bat habitat, bat-borne pathogens pose an epidemiological minefield in 113 countries, where risk is high that a virus will jump species and infect humans.

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