In June 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense-Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Chemical and Biological Technologies Department revealed their continued research involving bat and human and the hemorrhagic Marburg virus.

Marburg virus image via F. A. Murphy, 1968.

Bats can ‘clear’ the virus from their bodies, so researchers had long surmised that bats have potent antiviral defenses compared to other mammals.  However, the results of the study published in 2018 concluded that bats do not have a stronger immune system, than other animals!

The study was published under the title of The Egyptian Rousette Genome Reveals Unexpected Features of Bat Antiviral Immunity.  Scientists did discover that fruit bats can produce 22 type-I interferon omega anti-viral ‘copies’, while humans produce only one anti-viral copy, which seems to explain why bats can be infected with many killer diseases and survive.

U.S. Army DTRA video promoting the study of bats to cure human diseases, released 14JUN2018:

Operation Jupiter: U.S. DoD EXPERIMENTED WITH BATS FOR VACCINES!

PROJECT SEA RAVEN, U.S. Navy SEARCHING FOR NEW DISEASES IN CAPE VERDE