outburst! Ebola is making a comeback!
On June 1, local time, the World Health Organization announced the latest news, announcing the second outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to a Bloomberg report in the United States on June 1, according to Etni Longgundo, the health minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there is another Ebola outbreak in the west of the country, killing four people.
Subsequently, who is the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed that the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo had declared a new outbreak of Ebola in the country after the Ebola virus had killed four people.
On Monday, a message from Longgundo showed that this new wave of Ebola outbreaks occurred in the Mbandakawanda health zone in equateur province in the north-western Democratic Republic of Congo. It has so far caused 4 deaths.
According to the World Health Organization, the last Ebola outbreak in Equateur was in 2018, when 54 people were infected and 33 died.
According to the World Health Organization, the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains under the haze of the large outbreak of Ebola left over from earlier in the east. Now there is a second round of Ebola in the northwest.
Today's new outbreak of Ebola poses a new challenge to health officials. The origin of Ebola is also generally believed to be caused by bat-carried Ebola virus infection by humans.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > size varies</h1>
Bats are the general term for the pterodactyls of the mammalian order Lauya, with more than 900 species, making it the second largest mammal group, after rodents alone.
Its wings evolved from the forelimbs, and the forelimbs had a wing-shaped membrane, so this wing was also called a wing hand. In order to adapt to flight, its sternum evolved a keel process, which is very similar to that of birds.
They are also the only mammals that have evolved to have the ability to truly fly.
Pterodactyls are further divided into suborder Large Bat and Suborder Minor Bat. The members of the macroceller suborder are mainly the Pteropus and others. They are large, with a wingspan length of up to 1.5 to 1.7 meters, feeding on fruits and nectar, without hibernation, a relatively developed sense of vision and smell, and no echo positioning system.
The fox bat belongs to the suborder Large Bat
The bats that we usually see, as well as the vampire bats that appear in various literary, film and television works, belong to the suborder of small bats. Members of this suborder generally feed on meat, and for them, insects, fish, frogs, lizards, mice, other bats, animal blood, etc. can be fed. In addition, they are generally visually degraded, rely on echolocation systems to discern direction, and require hibernation.
In order to adapt to hibernation, carnivorous habits, many genes of the suborder of small bats have evolved accordingly. Their gene for synthesizing carboxyl ester lipase expands, which helps them store fat before hibernation; genes for synthetic digestive enzymes also expand and mutate, allowing members of the suborder Bats to better digest meat, while the gene-inactivated macrosaints can only digest plants, not meat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "bat" shou shuangquan</h1>
Darwin lamented in On the Origin of Species: "It is inconceivable that the evolution from flightless primitive mammals to flying bats is incredible." "Bats are the only mammals that can fly, and although Pteromys volans, which are also mammals, can also glide and are also known as "cold trumpet birds", gliding is not real flight after all.
Throughout the ages, the only mammals that can really occupy the sky are bats.
In order to adapt to the flight life, bat ancestors also underwent a series of rapid evolutions in their genes in the process of evolving the ability to fly. In order to improve the ability to fly flapping wings, genes associated with skin elasticity and genes involved in muscle contraction in bats have undergone adaptive evolution. At the same time, genes in bat mitochondria are also mutated to improve oxidative phosphorylation, providing a lot of energy needed for flight.
However, high levels of oxidative phosphorylation produce by-products such as reactive oxygen species (ROS), triggering adverse reactions such as DNA damage and apoptosis. To this end, a series of genes in bats related to DNA damage testing and DNA repair pathways have evolved, which can reduce or repair the damage caused by ROS.
In this way, bats have a relatively strong ability to repair DNA damage, not only rarely get cancer, but also have a longer lifespan. Bats, which weigh an average of only a few tens of grams, live for decades.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > plague "bat" dependent</h1>
Bats live so long that the ancients can't help but think of floating. Legend has it that Zhang Guolao, one of the Eight Immortals, was transformed by a white bat spirit at the beginning of chaos. Ancient China regarded bats as a good medicine, bat feces are called "night sand" by Chinese medicine, it is said to have the function of clearing the liver and clearing the purpose, and folklore also says that eating bat meat can treat asthma.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that bats and their excrement, far from curing diseases, can cause diseases, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are plague gods!
In fact, bats are one of the animals that carry the most viruses, and because they have the ability to fly, they are more capable of transmitting viruses to humans than other mammals. SARS, MERS, COVID-19, Ebola...
The initiators of this series of appalling and deadly diseases are actually bats, which can indirectly and even directly transmit the virus to humans, and because the entire chain of transmission is mammals, it will be easier for the virus to break through the interspecific barrier.
In 2005, Shi Zhengli's group at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed that the SARS virus may originate from bats; in 2013, they confirmed that the original host of the SARS virus was the Chinese chrysanthemum bat (Rhinolophus sinicus).
Bats are the primary animal reservoir for coronaviruses, with nearly 10% of bats carrying coronaviruses, compared to only 0.2% of other animals. Coronavirus has a strong ability to recombine and is easy to recombine to form a new virus. If the same bat or bat in the same cave carries multiple viruses at the same time, these viruses may recombine to form a deadly new virus.
Ebola outbreaks in Africa have also been linked to bats.
Bats in local forests carry the virus, and can become infected if they are bitten by bats or when they come into contact with spit and feces. Locals also like to eat fruit bats (Rousettus leschenaulti) and other wild animals in the forest, which increases the likelihood of contracting the virus.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > no disease</h1>
Surprisingly, although bats carry a variety of deadly and fierce viruses on their surfaces, they can coexist peacefully with the virus themselves and will not be infected by the virus on their bodies.
Why do bats "not give birth to diseases"?
The first reason is that bats need a lot of energy to maintain flight, so they need a high level of metabolism, so their metabolic rate is higher than other mammals, and their body temperature is higher.
You know, high temperatures are a natural line of immunity. In such a high temperature environment, it is difficult for viruses to survive and multiply. Similarly, humans have a fever when they are infected with bacteria and viruses, and it is precisely by using the high body temperature during the fever to inhibit the growth and reproduction of bacteria and viruses.
The second reason is that the type I interferon in the human body is only activated when the body is invaded by viruses or bacteria, while the type I interferon in the bat is always active and continues to work. Therefore, bats are more resistant to disease.
In addition, if the immune system responds too strongly to external pathogens, it may also cause excessive immunity, produce adverse reactions such as inflammation, and cause damage to the body. Genome sequencing results showed that the PYHIN gene family was missing from the bat gene and the STING gene was also mutated. The PYHIN gene family can cause inflammation after pathogen invasion, while the STING gene regulates interferon production. The deletion of the PYHIN gene family and the mutation of the STING gene inhibit the immune overdrive in bats, reduce the occurrence of inflammation, and thus reduce the damage of the virus to the body.
Although bats are the source of strong virus transmission in flight and will bring great harm to humans, humans can better fight viruses by understanding bats' own immune systems and virus defense mechanisms, and can also get inspiration from bats to suppress immune overcrisis and develop drugs to reduce human inflammatory responses.
The so-called "misfortune and blessing rely on, blessing and misfortune lie", bats bring not only plague to mankind, but also the inspiration to fight plague. Just as in Pandora's box there is both evil and hope, so do bats.
The above content is compiled from the "Life Code 2: Gene Science Popularization That Everyone Cares About" written by BGI CEO Yin Ye, the original title of "The Lesson of New Crown Pneumonia: The Bat" Disaster Depends on, Wild Food Must Not Be Eaten, and There Are Appropriate Deletions.
"Life Code 2: Genetic Science that Everyone Cares About"
Yin Ye
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