About 70 percent of emerging viral diseases in humans such as HIV, Ebola or the flu are animal-specific infections that can also affect our body. There are some 5,500 different known species of mammals, which in turn, can host countless microbes, so the exact number of viruses that haunt us is still an enigma for science.
However, new research has revealed that there are about 320,000 viruses yet to be discovered. A group of scientists from Columbia University (USA) traveled to the jungle of Bangladesh to examine the bat known as "flying fox", the largest flying mammal. The researchers analyzed more than 1,000 biological samples from the animal and found 55 different viruses, of which only five were known. Extrapolating these figures to the number of known mammalian species, they obtained an estimate of 320,000 anonymous viruses.
This research is being financed through the PREDICT project, responsible for the discovery of more than 240 new viruses in areas of the planet where people and animals closely coexist and share the same natural resources.
Collecting information from the virosphere is decisive in combating certain epidemic outbreaks in humans, which also implies a negligible cost compared to the cost derived from a pandemic episode such as that caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
