How leeches could help prevent future coronavirus outbreaks: blood suckers provide evidence of wildlife that carry animal viruses
- Digested blood from leeches’ stomachs contains the DNA of animals the parasites have fed on, giving an idea of wildlife diversity in an area
- This could help the fight against illegal hunting, and thus reduce the risk of novel viruses passing from wild animals to humans, as coronavirus may have done
A pioneering method for monitoring wild animal populations, developed in a nature reserve in southwest China may become an important tool in the prevention of future virus outbreaks – and the solution may lie in the gut of another parasite.
Using the latest biotechnology, a team led by Professor Douglas Yu of Britain’s University of East Anglia extracted DNA from digested blood in leeches’ stomachs, determined what animals they had fed on, and then produced a model of the distribution of wild animals in the Ailao Shan Nature Reserve in Yunnan province.
The same DNA analysis method could feasibly be used to examine drain water for evidence of illegal wildlife consumed or traded in markets, Yu says.
It took the team almost five years and more than 30,000 leeches, and now they hope to see the methodology applied to combat illegal trafficking of animals captured in the wild.
Wild animals are a reservoir of viruses that, due to their ability to rapidly change genetic make-up, regularly “jump” to other species, including humans.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) is believed to have originated in bats, before the virus jumped to civet cats and then humans.