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A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy

One serious concern associated with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that the virus might spill back from humans to wildlife, which would render some animal species reservoirs of the human virus. We assessed the potential circulation of SARS-CoV-2 caused by reverse infection from humans to bats, by perfor...

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Autores principales: Dakroub, Hiba, Russo, Danilo, Cistrone, Luca, Serra, Francesco, Fusco, Giovanna, De Carlo, Esterina, Amoroso, Maria Grazia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9319265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35889988
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11070742
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author Dakroub, Hiba
Russo, Danilo
Cistrone, Luca
Serra, Francesco
Fusco, Giovanna
De Carlo, Esterina
Amoroso, Maria Grazia
author_facet Dakroub, Hiba
Russo, Danilo
Cistrone, Luca
Serra, Francesco
Fusco, Giovanna
De Carlo, Esterina
Amoroso, Maria Grazia
author_sort Dakroub, Hiba
collection PubMed
description One serious concern associated with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that the virus might spill back from humans to wildlife, which would render some animal species reservoirs of the human virus. We assessed the potential circulation of SARS-CoV-2 caused by reverse infection from humans to bats, by performing bat surveillance from different sites in Central–Southern Italy. We restricted our survey to sampling techniques that are minimally invasive and can therefore be broadly applied by non-medical operators such as bat workers. We collected 240 droppings or saliva from 129 bats and tested them using specific and general primers for SARS-CoV-2 and coronaviruses, respectively. All samples (127 nasal swabs and 113 faecal droppings) were negative for SARS-CoV-2, and these results were confirmed by testing the samples with the Droplet Digital PCR. Additionally, pancoronavirus end-point RT-PCR was performed, and no sample showed specific bands. This outcome is a first step towards a better understanding of the reverse transmission of this virus to bats. Although the occurrence of a reverse zoonotic pattern can only be fully established by serological testing, the latter might represent an in-depth follow-up to a broad-scale preliminary assessment performed with our approach. We encourage the systematic surveillance of bats to help prevent reverse zoonotic episodes that would jeopardize human health, as well as biodiversity conservation and management.
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spelling pubmed-93192652022-07-27 A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy Dakroub, Hiba Russo, Danilo Cistrone, Luca Serra, Francesco Fusco, Giovanna De Carlo, Esterina Amoroso, Maria Grazia Pathogens Brief Report One serious concern associated with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that the virus might spill back from humans to wildlife, which would render some animal species reservoirs of the human virus. We assessed the potential circulation of SARS-CoV-2 caused by reverse infection from humans to bats, by performing bat surveillance from different sites in Central–Southern Italy. We restricted our survey to sampling techniques that are minimally invasive and can therefore be broadly applied by non-medical operators such as bat workers. We collected 240 droppings or saliva from 129 bats and tested them using specific and general primers for SARS-CoV-2 and coronaviruses, respectively. All samples (127 nasal swabs and 113 faecal droppings) were negative for SARS-CoV-2, and these results were confirmed by testing the samples with the Droplet Digital PCR. Additionally, pancoronavirus end-point RT-PCR was performed, and no sample showed specific bands. This outcome is a first step towards a better understanding of the reverse transmission of this virus to bats. Although the occurrence of a reverse zoonotic pattern can only be fully established by serological testing, the latter might represent an in-depth follow-up to a broad-scale preliminary assessment performed with our approach. We encourage the systematic surveillance of bats to help prevent reverse zoonotic episodes that would jeopardize human health, as well as biodiversity conservation and management. MDPI 2022-06-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9319265/ /pubmed/35889988 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11070742 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Brief Report
Dakroub, Hiba
Russo, Danilo
Cistrone, Luca
Serra, Francesco
Fusco, Giovanna
De Carlo, Esterina
Amoroso, Maria Grazia
A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy
title A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy
title_full A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy
title_fullStr A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy
title_full_unstemmed A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy
title_short A First Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Circulation in Bats of Central–Southern Italy
title_sort first assessment of sars-cov-2 circulation in bats of central–southern italy
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9319265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35889988
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11070742
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