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The article discusses how researchers are discovering that bats are the source of many strains of highly dangerous diseases. According to the researchers the viruses are not new, and that bats have carried the diseases without getting sick for hundreds of thousands of years, which indicates that something has changed that allowed the viruses to spill over into the human population. The researchers believe that the viruses may now be entering the human population because of the destruction of the bats' habitats. An overview is presented of the research being conducted on the issue.

The article reports that disease spread by fruit bats known as Nipah virus has claimed the lives of ten people in Kerala, India and that health officials and state authorities are taking measures to curb the virus and raise awareness.

The article examines the ethical aspects of the Ebola epidemic with origins in "the hot zone," a term for the region of over-exploited forest terrain in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It discusses research by the World Health Organization (WHO) suggesting that the changed forest ecology has forced fruit bats, which host the Ebola virus, to move closer to human settlements. The article goes on to discuss how the impoverished healthcare systems and lack of international intervention have contributed to the outbreak.

The article discusses the problem of rat infestation at the residence of the President of Ohio University in Ohio and the efforts of bat-catching expert Chad Keller in removing the bats. Other details include the President's wife Deborah McDavis breaking her foot while trying to dodge a bat, the threat of contracting rabies from the bats and the threat of disease because of guano which is bat dung.

The article discusses the reported scientific discovery of a SARS-related virus which lives in bats and can likely be transmitted to human beings as of October 2013, focusing on the World Health Organization, control measures to prevent bat-to-human transmissions, and Dr. Peter Daszak.

The article offers news briefs in Illinois which include the warning of Illinois Department of Public Health director Damon T. Arnold to avoid bats due to the rabies discovered in 43 tested bats in 12 counties, the 189,000 dollar award given by Marquette Bank to local students for their college education, and the induction of Helen D. Gayle and Sheila C. Johnson as honorary members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

The article reports that a Dutch woman was diagnosed with Marburg hemorrhagic fever, according to European health officials. Exposure to fruit bats in caves in Uganda was thought to be the source of infection. Authorities from World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the threat to public health resulting from the infection is limited.

The article investigates the link between bats and viral diseases. The transmission of rabies to bats and their cave-dwelling environments was first documented by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among the fatal illnesses linked to bats are Marburg/Ebola viruses on sub-Saharan Africa, Nipah virus in Southeast Asia and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-coronavirus in China.

The article provides information on zoonosis as reported in the periodical "National Geographic." Zoonosis is the phenomenon in which a disease leaps from its nonhuman prey into a human being such as the case of the bubonic plague, bird-flu, Ebola and Marburg virus. Scientists believed that bats are the favorite hiding place of the disease's pathogens. It stresses that ecological disturbance leads to the emergence of the disease as bats tend to migrate to other places with domesticated animals.

Offers a look at the search for the source of Asia's Nipah virus. Damage to Malaysia's pork industry; Possibility of using the virus for bioterrorism; Investigators organized by the Consortium for Conservative Medicine; Impact of man-engineered environmental changes on the rise of the epidemic; Implications for environmental policy; Sources of the severe acute respiratory syndrome and the Ebola virus both traced to animal origins; Source of the Nipah virus traced to the flying fox bat before being passed on to pigs; Thesis of an environmental trigger to the Nipah virus.

Focuses on the efforts of Jim Dreisacker, who runs Westchester Wildlife Control, to remove bats from dwellings in Westchester County, New York. Prices charged by Dreisacker for bat removal and proofing; State guidelines which require that all bats trapped inside a house are checked for rabies; Bat's value in controlling night-flying insects; Loyalty of bats to their roosting sites.