Seven things to know about bats and pandemic risk

Bats hang on the branches of a tree in Ganta, in Nimba County, Liberia, June 13, 2021. To match Special Report GLOBAL-PANDEMICS/BATS-JUMPZONES REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

(Reuters) - For millennia, bat viruses lurked in forests across West Africa, India, South America and other parts of the world. But, undisturbed, they posed little threat to humanity.

No longer, a new Reuters data analysis found. Today, as more and more people encroach on bat habitat, bat-borne pathogens pose an epidemiological minefield in 113 countries, where risk is high that a virus will jump species and infect humans.