SHOULD WE BE AFRAID OF BATS?

-The Darwin's Finch-

Its been 5 months since we've been struggling with a single tiny non-living dead organism - that has already killed 3.5 lakh of us. This is not an atomic war that everyone scared of, neither a devastating disaster but just a virus - a single virus. The great leap of humanity just faded, the evolution fainted - all because of a virus!

2020, the year of coronavirus, most precisely SARS-Cov-2, and still not sure about how long it will run. Some are dying with pneumonia at the hospital, some are at their home, some at the roads. At the same time, some of us have been continuously arguing whether its made by Xi Jinping at his drawing-room or by Trump at area 51. They don't care if the virus attacks them, they only care about how will they spread the conspiracy. Its human nature - we love to create a conspiracy, create threats, spread threats, get threatened by our own threats, and yeah - that's our happiness.

My objective to create this blog to focus on some really important and misleading chaos that has been all around us - the bats. Since Covid-19 started and news reported that it originated from bats, some of us or perhaps we have taken the pledge to get the world rid of this virus. And to make it matter, lots of people around the world started killing bats, destroying their habitats or spraying insecticide on them, It's like GOD has given them the duty & they are just obeying - they are not going to kill the virus, but the bats. The same awareness can get rid of the virus from our community but we are doing something that is going to kill us very soon, not today but someday for sure.

There's a lot of conflicts about whether the virus is man-made or natural, whether it's written in fiction or not - but nothing, just nothing about whether SHOULD WE BE AFRAID OF BATS or not. 

This blog is going to be like an FAQ, that will answer all your questions and doubts about bats spreading the disease.

Did Coronavirus originate in Bats?

Yes, that's true - the novel coronavirus or SARS-Cov-2 has originated in bats as per research done till now. So bats are the reason we're struggling with this disaster and we've lost 3.5 lakhs of us. But actually, the real reason is our human nature - will discuss in the later section. 

The news channel, newspapers have never shown the details or never told anything in detail & of course, we shouldn't expect anything details from them except for political agendas. So it's better to read authentic news sites, and blogs where you'll get the absolute answer to all your questions. 

The truth is that SARS-CoV-2 has never found in bats or any other animals, because of it's our virus- its human virus. Bats are supposed to have spread the virus because they carry a virus named Ratg13 that is similar to our SARS-CoV-2 , but remember, its similar but not the same virus.

Research done at Chinese lab has shown that Bats coronavirus or Ratg13 has 83% similarity of SARS-Cov-2. The virus has diverged around 17% out of which 87% divergence belongs to RNA modifications and that comprises of around 65% C-T mismatches & 22% of A-G mismatches (AGTC are DNA bases and screened after reverse transcription).

As a reference, we have similarities in DNA about 99% with Chimpanzees, around 97% with Orang-utangs & 96% with monkeys.

So yeah, bats have a different virus than our virus, but how did it come to us?

Bats never spread diseases directly to humans. Till now we've seen lots of outbreaks and in all the situations, bats has spread the virus to some other animal and then it came to us. 

In this case, the preferred animal is a pangolin. Pangolin is the most trafficked animal in the world and one of the rarest. In China, pangolins are considered as luxury food because of their religious ethics or their food habits. If it came to us via Pangolins then there should be a similar virus in them as SARS-Cov-2.

Research has shown that the coronavirus found in Pangolin i.e. Pangolin Cov has around 91% similarity with our human SARS-Cov-2 and 90.5% similarity with Bats Ratg13 (Bats coronavirus). 

Its proved that our hypothesis of the virus originated in bats and spread down to Pangolins then to us is true. But it's important to know that Bats coronavirus or Pangolin coronavirus - none of them can infect us. Zoonotic viruses (viruses present in animals other than humans) rarely infects humans around once in 1000 times. 

So surprisingly the virus which infected Pangolins had mutated to form another strain and that new strain started infecting humans. These rare mutations happen once in 1000 times or 10,000 times - still, there would be a probability of surviving in the human body. 

We're unlucky that it happened and became a world disaster, a Pandemic.

Conclusion: Coronavirus originated in bats doesn't mean that bats are the reason for the pandemic. Instead, our human behavior to natural resources has sparkled the very rare rate of getting a zoonotic virus. Human coronavirus is similar to that of bats coronavirus and Pangolin coronavirus but not the same. The virus might have originated in Bats and then spread down to the Pangolins and then to us via the China seafood market. It's rare of the rarest but it happened.

Why all the viruses originate in Bats?

Every time we see a virus outbreak, we read in the newspaper that it originated in Bats. Ebola, Nipah, SARS, MERS, and now the great SARS-CoV-2 - all the deadly viruses in human history had originated in bats. But why !!!

There's mainly 2 reasons of the common origin of most of the virus diseases -

1. Bats are the only mammal that can fly 

2. Bats have a very unique strong immune system

Bats comprise about 20% of the whole mammals on earth and the only mammals that can fly.  Its flying nature is sometimes makes it primitive mammal but sometimes very very advance mammal. Though they don't fly very frequently, still they flap their wings about 1000 times a day. This requires a lot of energy and for this energy requirement, there are very few organisms who can fly. For this high energy requirement, bats have been evolving since it's origin to get a better adaptation of energy management and to fly well. 

As we've said earlier that flying requires a lot of energy, and for that, the bats use their Mitochondria very extensively. Mitochondria is the powerhouse of cells - it transforms the food you eat into the energy you use. Bats supercharged their mitochondrial function to produce more and more energy. Mitochondria also produces reactive oxygen with that energy. And this reactive oxygen boosts their immune systen by inducing immune response. This immune response kills any bacteria or viruses that invades their body.

But this supercharged Mitochondria is also the reason for damages. This Mitochondrial overdrive causes a lot of damages to the cell - weakens the cell membrane, mess with the proteins, breaks up DNA and all of that sums to some deadly diseases like Cancer & Arthritis. 

Their body has anti-oxidants that plays a vital role in eliminating the damage-causing reactive molecules. But when a lot of energy is required & a lot of reactive oxygen formed - it leads to Oxidative Stress, a condition when most of the DNA damages happen. 

So that implies bat's supercharges Mitochondria leads to more Oxidative stress and that leads to a very high level of DNA damages. 

So, why aren't they getting killed by cancer ?

Genetic studies found that several mutations in the course of its evolution boost their ability to detect and repair DNA damages and at a very fast rate.  So that's how bats produce tons of energy without damaging its cellular machinery.

DNA damages can also cause super inflammation to the tissues and this can also lead to death. But the bats have evolved their physiology to minimize this inflammation.

STING Proteins (STimulators of INterferon Genes Proteins) are one of the ways mammalian cells trigger an immune response when a virus is detected. Bats have a high number of these STING proteins. Bats lacks PYHIN Proteins, that are another set of proteins that cause inflammation during infection. 

So that's how bats have managed to produce a lot of energy by maximizing mitochondrial function while maximizing DNA detection tools and by that minimizes inflammation.

Conclusion: The reason behind most of the outbreak originates in bats is that they can fly & they've got a strong immune system. For flying, they require a lot of energy that is served by Mitochondrial overdrive but that leads to several complications that lead to death. Bats have evolved their physiology to cope up with this situation. Their DNA damages caused by supercharged Mitochondria are balanced out by their turbocharged immune response mechanism of detecting and repairing damaged DNA.

Why don't they get sick of the viruses they carry?

Bats are the reservoirs of most viral diseases. Till now, 12 viruses have been spread down to humans from bats. And they carry more than thousand of viruses in their wide kingdom of around 1400 different species. But while carrying all those deadly viruses, why don't they get sick?

When any virus infects any animal or us, our cells release some biochemical response that is called interferons. This interferon-alpha induces immune response and activates tools to kill the virus. 

Bats have evolved a very special mechanism that they always have their interpheron system activated. So they have a very short period of infection and a very high rate of recovery. But that's not the very end.

The mammalian cell contains an enzyme called ribonuclease L, which when activated chops up viral RNA to stop the pathogen from spreading, but it requires a complex set of reactions and needs time. But, bats have developed a mechanism by which they can directly activate this ribonuclease L enzyme by interferon system and drastically reduce the time of infection.

So, when bats get viruses they can very easily wipe them out and don't get ill.

Conclusion: Bats carry tons of viruses still they're not getting infected. Because they've evolved to develop some really cool mechanism that helps them get rid of any infection so easily and very fast.

How do they spread the virus so fast?

The main reason of spreading the virus so fast is that they can fly. Bats usually fly in groups with full of their community or wherever they stay, they stay in groups. That's how the viruses present in a bat get transmitted to other bats, sometimes any other species of bats, and got spread so fast. 

We have seen the Nipah outbreak in Kerala where it was assumed to have originated from fruit bats. They don't eat anything completely, instead, they get a bite and throw the fruit. If anyone comes in contact with those contaminated fruits by eating them will get contaminated and thats how human transmission begins. 

Actually, every animal, whether its rat or bat, have tons of viruses in their saliva. So there's always a probability of getting infected but thats rare. 

In the case of Covid-19, the virus might have gone to Pangolins before entering into our system. All the time, we've seen an intermediate host that spreads the virus to the human community, not the bats. Bats never cause diseases to humans directly.

Conclusion: Bats don't directly infect humans, their always an intermediate host that infects us. Whether it's by coming in contact with fruits eaten by them or by direct contact of the hosts, the human transmission begins.

Should we be afraid of Bats?

And finally, the context of the blog has arrived. I think I don't have to answer this again because if you've read it from the beginning then you've got the answer.

Its a big NO, a huge NOOOOOO, really really grand NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

We should never ever be scared of getting diseases from bats. Yeah, they do spread a lot of diseases but bats have nothing to do with that. Instead, if we continue to kill bats after getting afraid, it will cause huge harm to the biodiversity.

Bats induce pollination in a lot of plants. For example, take the Mangroves in Sunderbans. Bats are the only pollinator of mangrove trees. Mangroves protect us from any deadly cyclone or flood. Their root system is so strong as of bats' immune system, that any invader whether its a storm or a virus will get shielded. If we kill those bats, mangroves will become extinct and we'll be flooded.

Bats help to regrow forest in barren, deforested areas. They also control pests and that's a very very important role of them. By controlling pests, they save several billions of dollars every year for the farmers.

There's no reason for getting afraid of bats. But that never says that we should be living with them. They are wild and they should be in the wild - its the law of nature. 

But our human nature of cutting down forests, turning jungles into homelands have raised the chance of getting closer to them.

My request to all the readers will be to protect bats and stop spreading baseless rumors. Please don't get involved in anything that is happening all around us - kill bats, save humanity. Try to spread truths rather than rumors & judge before you act.

Conclusion: This blog starts with the same question it is ending with and the answer is a big NOOO. We should never ever be afraid of bats. Instead, we should protect them from getting killed by some over-responsible people all around us. Bats do help us a lot and if bats become extinct, it will be a threat to biodiversity.

SAVE BATS

SAVE NATURE

SAVE HUMANITY

@TheDarwinsFinch2020