Importantly, 20 (9.1%) participants witnessed bats flying close to their houses, and one had handled a bat corpse. Most (81.2%) kept or owned livestock or pets, and the majority (97.2%) had a history of exposure to or contact with livestock or wild animals. Occupational data were obtained for 208 (95.4%) participants: 85.3% farmers and 8.7% students. Among those sampled, 139 are female and 79 male, and the median age is 48 (range 12–80). This region was not involved in the 2002–2003 SARS outbreaks and none of the subjects exhibited any evident respiratory illness during sampling. We have been conducting longitudinal molecular surveillance of bats for CoVs in these caves since 2011 and have found that they are inhabited by large numbers of bats including Rhinolophus spp., a major reservoir of SARSr-CoVs. 1A), located 1.1–6.0 km from two caves (Yanzi and Shitou). In October 2015, we collected serum samples from 218 residents in four villages in Jinning County, Yunnan province, China (Fig. In this study, we performed serological surveillance on people who live in close proximity to caves where bats that carry diverse SARSr-CoVs roost. However, to date, no evidence of direct transmission of SARSr-CoVs from bats to people has been reported.

These results indicate that some SARSr-CoVs may have high potential to infect human cells, without the necessity for an intermediate host. Importantly, SARSr-CoVs that use the SARS-CoV receptor, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) have been isolated (Ge et al. Since then, diverse SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) have been detected and reported in bats in different regions globally (Hu et al. Subsequent work identified genetically diverse SARSr-CoVs in Chinese horseshoe bats ( Rhinolophus sinicus) in a county of Yunnan Province, China and provided strong evidence that bats are the natural reservoir of SARS-CoV (Ge et al. Isolation of SARS-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoVs) from masked palm civets and the detection of SARS-CoV infection in humans working at wet markets where civets were sold suggested that masked palm civets could serve as a source of human infection (Guan et al.

During the SARS outbreak investigation, epidemiological evidence of a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV was identified (Xu et al.

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