Featured Post

THIS IS WHAT I DO

Barbed wire | Rescue | THIS IS WHAT I DO checking barbed wire in my own time. volunteer.

This Scientist Tracked Bats for Decades - Ecologist Peggy Eby

This Scientist Tracked Bats for Decades Ecologist Peggy Eby

Ecologist Peggy Eby’s discovery after decades of studying bats in Australia underscores the time and shoe-leather research needed to prevent future pandemics.


ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This Scientist Tracked Bats for Decades and Solved a Mystery About a Deadly Disease
Ecologist Peggy Eby’s discovery after decades of studying bats in Australia underscores the time and shoe-leather research needed to prevent future pandemics.
by Kathleen Flynn for ProPublica and Caroline Chen. May 22

Wildlife ecologist Peggy Eby fell in love with flying foxes when she moved to Australia from Kansas. She spent decades studying the bats’ movement and behavior. At times she worked without pay to answer questions she had about the fuzzy, fox-faced mammals.

Those bats turned out to be the carriers of the deadly Hendra virus, which can jump from bats to horses and then to humans. Eby began a quest to understand why and how the virus was making these leaps between species, known as spillover. She hoped to predict when the next infection would emerge. The decades of data Eby gathered as she followed her curiosity were key to cracking the mystery. So ProPublica decided to make a video about her.

Eby and her colleagues’ work shows that it’s possible to predict when spillover will happen. Doing so requires long-term research and funding to match. But ProPublica has found that public health authorities focus on responding to outbreaks already underway rather than trying to prevent them. Grants for developing treatments are easier to come by than for studies on spillover.

Eby says she hopes their findings will inspire more research into understanding what’s sparking outbreaks of other diseases like Ebola or Hendra’s equally deadly cousin, the Nipah virus: “Our response to COVID has made it pretty clear that vaccines aren’t going to be the answer, that while they are very important, while containment is very important, having a better idea of what’s causing the spillover in the first place can play an important role in preventing pandemics.”


COMMENTS

BLOGGER
Loaded All Posts Not found any posts VIEW ALL Readmore Reply Cancel reply Delete By Home PAGES POSTS View All RECOMMENDED FOR YOU LABEL ARCHIVE SEARCH ALL POSTS Not found any post match with your request Back Home Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat January February March April May June July August September October November December Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec just now 1 minute ago $$1$$ minutes ago 1 hour ago $$1$$ hours ago Yesterday $$1$$ days ago $$1$$ weeks ago more than 5 weeks ago Followers Follow THIS PREMIUM CONTENT IS LOCKED STEP 1: Share to a social network STEP 2: Click the link on your social network Copy All Code Select All Code All codes were copied to your clipboard Can not copy the codes / texts, please press [CTRL]+[C] (or CMD+C with Mac) to copy Table of Content