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The Fruit Bat Disease Has come back & Killed another Vet in Qld Australia

Published: 7:09 PM GMT+10, Friday, 4 September 2009

 

 Archives of BBC News..

Wednesday, December 2, 1998 Published at 19:06 GMT


Health

Bat disease threat down under

Bats can pass on diseases to humans

The deadly virus rabies could return to Australia through a new infection carried by bats.

The horses came down with a respiratory disease in 1994 and 13 died.

So did their trainer, Vic Rail.


[ image: Megamyxovirus was passed from bats to horses to humans]
Megamyxovirus was passed from bats to horses to humans
Experts tracked the source of the disease to a variation of a virus related to measles and canine distemper.

They called it megamyxovirus. A year later, a sugar cane farmer in northern Australia developed severe muscular seizures and died.

He was found to have been infected by a horse with the virus a year earlier.

It is thought that the horses may have caught the virus from the uterus fluid from female bats which had just given birth.

Experts believe the fluid may have dropped onto the ground from the trees where the bats were nesting and entered into the horses' bloodstream after they ate or licked it.

 

 

 

We had gum trees in heavy bloom last Autumn and now again in Spring& could be included in the Fruit Bat, or Flying Fox's Diet..

DIET

Bats are nocturnal creatures that is why they feed at night. Their keen sense of smell is important in locating their food. They have sensitive noses and large eyes that enable them to pick up the scents of flowers and ripe fruit and locate them in darkness. Sometimes they travel many kilometres in search of their favourite trees. 

Their food consists on fruit, blossoms, nectar,  pollen and small seeds of native trees. The fruit juice and pulp is obtained by crushing the fruit. They spit out the skin and fiber after swallowing the juicy pulp.  They also may feed on berries such as grapes and cherries.

 http://teachit.acreekps.vic.edu.au/animals/fruit%20bat.htm

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