Singapore researchers discover new bat-based virus capable of infecting animals, humans

Researchers from Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School recently identified and characterized a new genus of filovirus in fruit bats.

Their findings — published in the journal Nature Microbiology — called the virus Mengla, for the Chinese county in which it was discovered. It was identified after being pulled from a bat sample and consequently run through sequencing and characterization studies. Uniquely, it only shares 32 to 54 percent of its genetic sequence with other known filoviruses, like Ebola and Marburg. Evolutionary-wise, scientists said this new virus sits between those two, posing an interspecies transmission risk.

“Studying the genetic diversity and geographic distribution of bat-borne filoviruses is very important for risk assessment and outbreak prevention as this type of infectious disease can affect the general public without warning with devastating consequences,” said Wang Lin-Fa, director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Signature Research Programme at Duke- NUS and a senior author of the study, said.

Despite its potential for damage, the virus has to date only been found in Rousettus bats in China. The team plans further tests to determine the actual risk of spread outside that species. This could be the first step to developing control and treatment strategies for it.