Scientists want to understand exactly how pathogens can jump species and what the next threat may be.
Bats are essential to the world's ecosystems, but they are known carriers of several viruses. Humans are increasingly encroaching upon their habitats, adding to the risk of new pandemics, so scientists are studying bats for any clues about how to prevent any new outbreaks.
Lead scientist Dr Richard Suu-ire has studied bats for many years. He explains that PPE is needed "to protect you from any infection you may pick up within the cage but also to protect the bats from getting anything from us. So it's protection both ways." Today, his team is also testing for superbugs in the bat droppings. The scientists have fed the bats pawpaw fruit and, once the bats have defecated on the tarpaulin, they take swabs of the bright orange droppings and store them in test tubes.The team wear PPE to help protect themselves from possible infections - and to protect the bats
These nets allow him to catch some bats temporarily which he then examines, measures and finally releases back into the wild. As an ecologist, he worries about how humans are increasingly encroaching into bat habitats. It is certainly not a place for the faint-hearted. There are large rodent-type animals called grass cutters with long tails, and dead antelopes with their throats slashed - signs of the various ways in which they were hunted in the wild.Some suspect that bushmeat markets are where diseases could jump from animals to humans
"The trade is dominated mostly by women and for a lot of them, this is the only trade they know because it's been handed down from their grandparents to their mothers, and now they are in the trade as well," he says.
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