Bats Source of Mysterious Virus in Middle-East

From Livescience:

In June, a 60-year-old man checked into a hospital in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, with a mysterious illness. The man, who had acute pneumonia and failing kidneys, eventually died.

Now, the genetic sequencing of the virus behind his death suggests it was a new one, and it came from Asian bats. The findings, which were published Nov. 20 in the journal mBio, may help scientists understand what makes the mysterious virus so deadly.

"The virus is most closely related to viruses in bats found in Asia, and there are no human viruses closely related to it," said study co-author Ron Fouchier, of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, in a statement. "Therefore, we speculate that it comes from an animal source."
In general, human illness from animal diseases has been on the rise, but bats are an especially deadly reservoir for viruses. In addition to harboring rabies, bats may have been the initial hosts of hemorrhagic fevers such as the Ebola virus and deadly brain fevers such as the Nipah virus, scientists say.

Since the first case was reported, two other people have fallen ill, including a man from London who was visiting neighboring Qatar and another man in Saudi Arabia.

(H/t Gates of Vienna)