by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse Climate change may have played a “key role” in the transmission of the novel coronavirus to humans by driving several species of pathogen-carrying bats into closer contact, research showed on Friday. The virus, which has killed more than two million people and caused unprecedented global disruption, is thought to have originated in bats in Southeast Asia. Researchers from the University of Cambridge used temperature and rainfall data over […]
Tag: bats
Much maligned elsewhere, bats get star treatment in central France
by Maxime MAMET Agence France-Presse BOURGES, France (AFP) — At a museum in central France, researchers tenderly feed insects and kitten milk formula to tiny orphaned bats — creatures widely reviled for their role in human disease outbreaks, most recently COVID-19. The pandemic has triggered bat-killing sprees in communities from India and Peru to Cuba and Rwanda, but the mission of the team at the Bourges natural history museum is to protect the misunderstood winged mammals. […]
Humans to blame for spread of coronavirus and other ‘zoonoses’
by Stéphane ORJOLLET Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Whether it came from a bat or a pangolin is not certain, but one thing is: the coronavirus outbreak that has killed tens of thousands and turned the world upside down comes from the animal world. It is human activity enabled the virus to jump to people, and specialists are warning that if nothing changes many other pandemics of this nature will follow. The name given to […]
Peru saves bats blamed for coronavirus
LIMA, Peru (AFP) — Authorities called Wednesday for worried Peruvians to stop killing bats after rescuing 200 that was going to be burnt by peasants believing them to be spreading the coronavirus. “We must not distort the situation due to the pandemic. Bats are not our enemies,” the National Service of Wild Forests and Fauna (SERFOR) said in a statement on Wednesday. SERFOR called for calm after peasants in Culden, in the northern Cajamarca region, […]





