As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc, again claiming many victims on each cheek and bringing entire sectors to a standstill, Filipino researchers, protected by their suits, capture the bats trapped in the nets they have previously installed at nightfall.
To discover
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The small animals are then measured and cleaned, their droppings are analyzed according to a simulation model funded by Japan and which will be developed over the next three years by the University of the Philippines Los Banos.
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Besides laboratory work, the research requires long excursions into a very dense tropical forest where the majority of animals captured are "horseshoe" bats in reference to the shape of the nasal leaf lining the muzzle of the animal.
These are known to harbor deadly viruses such as Ebola, or SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).
With the data collected, these "virus hunters" hope to predict the dynamics of a coronavirus and its spread to humans.