More than four dozen Jamaican fruit bats destined for a lab in Bozeman, Montana, are set to become part of an experiment with an ambitious goal: predicting the next global pandemic.
Bats worldwide are primary vectors for virus transmission from animals to humans. Those viruses often are harmless to bats but can be deadly to humans. Horseshoe bats in China, for example, are cited as a likely cause of the covid-19 outbreak. And researchers believe pressure put on bats by climate change and encroachment from human development have increased the frequency of viruses jumping from bats to people, causing what are known as zoonotic diseases.
