Hungry Bats, Flowering Trees, and Dead Horses – A tale of disease spillover

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It was 1994, and a new virus was killing racehorses in Australia. Then it killed a horse trainer who was caring for his charges. The virus, called Hendra after the Brisbane suburb where it first surfaced, is a relative of the measles virus.

Hendra virus has been traced to large, furry bats known as flying foxes. While it doesn’t make the bats sick, they can spread it to animals such as horses, which can become very ill and die.

And there’s an interesting twist. Researchers led by Dr. Raina Plowright, a professor in the department of Public and Ecosystem Health at Cornell University, have found the bats only hang out around the horse farms when they’re hungry. The solution? Blooming trees.

It’s a perfect example of how climate change, animal health, and human health are linked.

In this episode of One World, One Health, listen as Dr. Plowright explains how she and colleagues solved a decades-old mystery and came up with a possible solution.