Bats are the Reservoir for SARS Virus?

Scientists appear to have found the source of the mysterious SARS epidemic, which emerged from China in late 2002, killed almost 800 people around the world, caused large economic losses in Asia and Canada and died out in late 2003, thanks in part to strict quarantines.
Two scientific teams have identified Chinese horseshoe bats as the likely reservoir for the virus. Although the case is not ironclad, the knowledge that large numbers of bats harbor the virus should help officials prevent and control future outbreaks in humans.
It was an immense relief in 2003 that SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, never became the global pandemic that some experts had feared. But scientists remained nervous that they did not know where the virus was hiding or whether it might again infect humans.
An early finding that the virus had infected palm civets sold in the live animal markets of southern China proved a dead end when later studies found no widespread infection in either wild or farmed civets.
If civets transmitted the SARS virus to humans, they most likely picked it up from infected bats, which are sold in the live markets in close proximity to other animals. The viruses found in bats by the two research teams are related closely enough to the SARS virus to suggest that bats were the original reservoir.
The findings make it important for Chinese health authorities to minimize contacts between bats and humans or farmed civets. They also need to monitor the live markets to eliminate infected animals. Meanwhile, researchers will be conducting more studies that may shed light on how likely it is that the virus will re-emerge to strike down more people.
Oct 06, 2005
The New York Times (International Herald Tribune, France)