A flying bat. – Henry Ausloos / Sipa
Small animal, big risks. In New Caledonia, the dogfish, a large bat emblematic of the territory, remains a popular game for the population, despite the health risks highlighted with the epidemic of
coronavirus, and the identification in 2017 of a new disease associated with this flying mammal. “We are not careful enough here, when the Covid-19 crisis came to remind us that the
bat is a pathogenic reservoir “, comments a scientist, who requested anonymity.
On the Caillou, “there are people who hunt the dogfish in tap, without gloves, risking being bitten or scratched,” he adds. The archipelago has four species of fruit bat, three of which are endemic. “They are nicknamed” the gardeners of the forests “because they have a crucial role in the dispersion of seeds and pollination,” explains Malick Oedin, who is dedicating his doctorate in biology to the bat.
” Disease […] bats »
In 2016, the federation of hunters was asked to collect animals after the discovery, in the forest park of Noumea, of fruit bats carrying antibodies to the Nipah virus. Appeared in 1998 in Asia, this serious pathology, of which the bat is the host, has caused several dozen deaths. Investigations carried out at the time revealed that 30% of Caledonian dogfishes carried Nipah antibodies.
This Tuesday on Radio Classique, the professor Didier raoult said that in New Caledonia, “as they eat bats, there is a specific disease of bats (…) which probably spreads everywhere in Oceania”. The territorial hospital center (CHT) has highlighted a new disease, suspected of being transmitted by fruit bats, following work carried out in collaboration with the Institut hospitalo-universitaire de Marseille (IHU), which is headed by Pr Raoult .
Research is in progress
This zoonosis called hemolytic fever, which causes weight loss, fever and enlarged spleen, affected between 2012 and 2019 about fifteen people, four of whom died. “All the patients, except one, had been in contact with fruit bats either hunting or cooking and most had eaten from three weeks to three months before the onset of symptoms,” said Doctor Julien Colot, from the CHT microbiology laboratory.
The multidisciplinary Caledonian scientific team to which he belongs will deepen research on modes of transmission, other potential reservoirs (pigs, rats) and extend the field of study to Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna. In Noumea, the Institut Pasteur is also working on the sequencing of the genome of fruit bat.
“These do not have the capacity to infect humans, but our work will nevertheless help to better describe human leptospirosis. Our samples will also allow us to broaden research on pathogenic risks, including the coronaviruses, “said Cyrille Goarant, the researcher in charge of the program. This veterinarian by training, however, insists on the fact that this true “museum” of the virus that is the dogfish remains harmless to humans, “as long as we leave him alone in his natural place of life”.
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