Scientist recently have found evidence of a flu found in Bats. It is a never before seen strand of flu, and the risk to humans is still unclear. The Bats that the virus was found in was a kind of bat that only eats fruits, a little yellow-shouldered bat from Guatemala. They don't bite us so it can't spread that way. But it can spread by the bat leaving the virus on a piece of fruit and us humans eating it. But some people are still skeptical. Richard "Mick" Fulton said "In my mind, if you can't grow the virus, how do you know that the virus is there?” That is up to the scientist to decide with more research and more testing. So far, the virus hasn’t mutated and it still is unable to be transmitted from bat to human. If it stays that way, we will be safe. The next step is to try to find a way to keep the virus from ever being a threat to us. The scientists will do the necessary steps in order to find a way to keep it unthreatening.
With all the talk about swine flu in the past few years, I can only imagine what bat flu is. The Scientists say that they can't even grow the newly found flu virus on chicken eggs or a human cell culture. And they don't even know if it is going to be a risk to us yet. The risk is if the virus somehow got exposed to the more common influenza we know, and then mutate into something that can affect us and that we don't have a cure for yet. Just like the scenario in the recent movie Contagion, when the bird flu found a way to get transmitted human to human, and it caused massive amounts of deaths, in a short period of time. Hopefully that won’t happen!
In my opinion, I think this "Bat Flu" will be fully investigated by the scientists, and they will be able to keep it under control. It won't be a threat to humans, but that is just speculation. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.