Finding these new strains in animals would allow us to work on ways to prevent future pandemics.
Currently, almost 70% of viruses that are transmitted to humans such as HIV, Ebola virus or lately the Coronavirus MERS(Middle East respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, editor’s note) find their origin in the animal environment. For the Coronavirus, for example, researchers have directed their investigations towards dromedaries, possible vector of transmission, then on bats from Saudi Arabia.
Understanding the origin of each virus and which animals carry them is akin to an impossible mission. However, American and Bangladeshi researchers tried the experiment by analyzing flying foxes, a type of bats. This animal is known to carry the Nipah virus, responsible for encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or respiratory damage, according to the WHO.
From some 1,897 samples collected from flying foxes, scientists have uncovered 60 different types of viruses, most of them unknown. The team then extrapolated this figure to all living animal species to arrive at an estimate of 320,000 viruses. These viruses, never before detected, could one day make their appearance and declare themselves in humans.
In the journal mBio, Professor Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University, USA, stresses the importance of establishing a census of these new viruses, in order to protect against d ‘possible illnesses. A task that could take ten years and cost a whopping six billion dollars (nearly 4.6 billion euros)!
But the game is worth the candle, assures the researcher who warns: “Today we have geographic areas with a great potential of infectious agents which could constitute a threat to human health”.
An observatory project called Predict has already started to identify viruses. He discovered 240 new strains in places where people and animals come into close contact.