‘It’s only a matter of time’: bat-human virus spillovers may be very common, study finds

Covid-19 has been called a “once in a century” pandemic, but new research suggests that the kind of event thought to have sparked its outbreak – the spillover of a bat virus to people – is more common than previously known. Some 400,000 people across Southeast Asia and southern China may be infected by Sars-related bat coronaviruses on average each year, though most infections go undetected and may not spread, according to research from a team of emerging infectious disease specialists. “It seems like a huge number, but when you think about the number of people that live in that region – it’s hundreds of millions of people with a very active wildlife trade, high exposure to wildlife and tens of millions of bats flying out every night … and eventually you get infected,” co-author Peter Daszak said. “Then it’s only a matter of time that one of those viruses is able to...