While the most powerful nations of the world are on their knees battling Coronavirus, the animal that is allegedly responsible for the dissemination of many such viral outbreaks remains immune to the deadly disease it causes. Bats which are rumoured to be the cause behind the Covid-19 pandemic have a remarkable ability to ward off the dangers of the virus, says report.
A new scientific paper conducted by the University of Rochester has shone some light on the issue. According to the researchers of the study, the single most important reason behind the rock-solid immunity of bats to the deadly viruses is their ability to control the body inflammation. Incidentally, over-inflammation has also been found as one of the main reasons for the high casualties among the Coronavirus patients.
It is the inflammatory response of the body that is killing the patient more than the virus itself, Vera Gorbunova one of the researchers of the paper was quoted as saying by Sciencedaily.com. He further explained that once the human body gets infected with a virus, the body sounds an alarm and develops a fever or inflammation but whenever the body over-reacts to the entry of a foreign virus then the body over-inflammates and causes complications.
But unlike humans, bats maintain a perfect balance between the immuno-response to the virus and at the same time reduce the multiplication of the virus in their bodies. As a result their immuno-response fights against the virus but does not over inflammate the body.
According to the researchers one of the reasons for the perfect immuno-response of the bats is their ability to fly. Being the only mammal which can fly, the bats get used to sudden ups and downs in their body temperature and other sudden metabolism changes. This helps their bodies to mount a resistance against the virus, the research explains.
Another reason for their strong immunity could be traced to their environment. The environment the bats live in is dense, large and susceptible to the growth of the viruses, say researchers. As a result, the bats are constantly exposed to varied kinds of viruses and pathogens and their immunity system is in a never-ending-war with different kinds of viruses and provides very strong immunity, the researcher says.
The researchers hope that their study would help the scientific community analyse the immuno-response of the bats and find ways to develop therapies which could help humans to fight against such diseases in the future.
