Cecilia Sánchez

EcoHealth Alliance

Body condition metrics are widely used to infer animal health and to assess costs of parasite infection. Since parasites harm their hosts, ecologists might expect negative relationships between infection and condition in wildlife, but this assumption is challenged by studies showing positive or null condition–infection relationships. Here, we outli...

Urban-living wildlife can be exposed to metal contaminants dispersed into the environment through industrial, residential, and agricultural applications. Metal exposure carries lethal and sublethal consequences for animals; in particular, heavy metals (e.g. arsenic, lead, mercury) can damage organs and act as carcinogens. Many bat species reside an...

Emerging diseases caused by coronaviruses of likely bat origin (e.g., SARS, MERS, SADS, COVID-19) have disrupted global health and economies for two decades. Evidence suggests that some bat SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) could infect people directly, and that their spillover is more frequent than previously recognized. Each zoonotic spillo...

Over the past two decades, research on bat-associated microbes such as viruses, bacteria and fungi has dramatically increased. Here, we synthesize themes from a conference symposium focused on advances in the research of bats and their microbes, including physiological, immunological, ecological and epidemiological research that has improved our un...

Bats are reservoirs for various pathogens, including SARS-like coronaviruses (CoVs). Understanding the distribution of bat species is crucial to identifying areas where viral spillover from bats to other animals or humans might occur. In this study, we performed species distribution modeling to predict suitable habitats within Thailand under curren...

Emerging diseases caused by coronaviruses of likely bat origin (e.g. SARS, MERS, SADS and COVID-19) have disrupted global health and economies for two decades. Evidence suggests that some bat SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) could infect people directly, and that their spillover is more frequent than previously recognized. Each zoonotic spil...

Anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) deployed to control rodent pest populations can increase the risk of pathogen infection for some wildlife. However, it is unknown whether ARs also increase infection risk for target rodents, which are common hosts for zoonotic (animal-to-human transmitted) pathogens. In this study, we tested whether rats exposed to...

Zoonotic spillover and subsequent disease emergence cause significant, long-lasting impacts on our social, economic, environmental and political systems. Identifying and averting spillover transmission is crucial for preventing outbreaks and mitigating infectious disease burdens. Investigating the processes that lead to spillover fundamentally invo...

Urban rats are widely distributed pests that have negative effects on public health and property. It is crucial to understand their distribution to inform control efforts and address drivers of rat presence. Analysing public rat complaints can help assess urban rat distribution and identify factors supporting rat populations. Both social and enviro...

Many parasites have external transmission stages that persist in the environment prior to infecting a new host. Understanding how long these stages can persist, and how abiotic conditions such as temperature affect parasite persistence, is important for predicting infection dynamics and parasite responses to future environmental change. In this stu...

Anthropogenic landscape modification such as urbanization can expose wildlife to toxicants, with profound behavioural and health effects. Toxicant exposure can alter the local transmission of wildlife diseases by reducing survival or altering immune defence. However, predicting the impacts of pathogens on wildlife across their ranges is complicated...

Bats are reservoirs of emerging viruses that are highly pathogenic to other mammals, including humans. Despite the diversity and abundance of bat viruses, to date they have not been shown to harbor exogenous retroviruses. Here we report the discovery and characterization of a group of koala retrovirus-related (KoRV-related) gammaretroviruses in Aus...

Urban development can alter resource availability, land use, and community composition, which, in turn, influences wildlife health. Generalizable relationships between wildlife health and urbanization have yet to be quantified and could vary across different measures of health and among species. We present a phylogenetic meta‐analysis of 516 compar...

The spectacled flying fox ( Pteropus conspicillatus) is listed as vulnerable to extinction in Australia. The species' restricted population is in decline, putatively attributed to decreasing habitat, climatic extremes, anthropogenic activities, and more recently, mass mortality events associated with tick paralysis and neonatal cleft palate syndrom...

Old World fruit bats (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) provide critical pollination and seed dispersal services to forest ecosystems across Africa, Asia, and Australia. In each of these regions, pteropodids have been identified as natural reservoir hosts for henipaviruses. The genus Henipavirus includes Hendra virus and Nipah virus, which regularly spill...

Interactions with flying foxes pose disease transmission risks to volunteer rehabilitators (carers) who treat injured, ill, and orphaned bats. In particular, Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) can be transmitted directly from flying foxes to humans in Australia. Personal protective equipment (PPE) and rabies vaccination can be used to protect against...

Survey data. Responses to the survey from 122 Australian flying fox rehabilitators. Data were de-identified by removing the following information: gender, age, education level, state of residence, years of experience, and wildlife care organisation. (CSV)

Wildlife and flying fox organisations contacted. (DOCX)

Risk to human health rated by 118 Australian flying fox rehabilitators, 2014: %a and (n). Rehabilitators assigned risk ratings to multiple hypothetical scenarios involving a flying fox. (DOCX)

Results of a binary logistic regression to identify predictors of being bitten or scratched. Values are reported for β (beta) coefficient, SE (standard error), OR (odds ratio) and 95% CI (confidence interval). PPE, personal protective equipment; Threat, whether a carer considers viruses in flying foxes to be a threat to carer health. “Any form” of...

SOAR: Survey Of Australian flying fox Rehabilitators. (PDF)

Results of a binary logistic regression to identify predictors of not being bitten or scratched. Values are reported for β (beta) coefficient, SE (standard error), OR (odds ratio) and 95% CI (confidence interval). PPE, personal protective equipment; Threat, whether a carer considers viruses in flying foxes to be a threat to carer health. Model AUC...