Meeting Abstract
Bats can serve as reservoir hosts of several emerging infectious diseases, such as those caused by henipaviruses, Marburg and Ebola filoviruses, and SARS and MERS coronaviruses. The African little epauletted fruit bat, Epomophorus labiatus, is a likely reservoir host for several pathogens with zoonotic potential. Epomophorus labiatus is peridomestic, commonly found near human settlements and may be hunted for food, allowing for possible disease spillover from bats to humans. In addition to viral infections, this species is also known to have high loads of Hepatocystis spp. malarial parasites. To further explore their pathogen burden and their potential importance in zoonoses, we determined the prevalence of various pathogens, such as lyssaviruses, malarial parasites, and Bartonella spp., in E. labiatus from South Sudan and Uganda. We compare pathogen prevalence across sex, age, season, reproductive status to better understand spillover risk. We hypothesize that bats with high parasite loads will be co-infected with other pathogens as infection with one pathogen may lower immune responses against another pathogen. Furthermore, we hypothesize that sex, reproductive status, and season will affect pathogen prevalence and co-infection profiles. When environmental conditions are challenging, resources may be shifted from immune processes to other physiological systems. Thus, we predict higher pathogen prevalence during the dry season. Similarly, as pregnancy may represent an immunosuppressed state, we predict higher pathogen prevalence during pregnancy compared to that of non-reproductive females.
