Hendra virus rarely spills from animals to us. Climate change makes it a bigger threat

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/11/16/ [login to see] /an-elegant-way-to-stop-deadly-hendra-virus-spillovers-from-bats-to-horses-to-us
Not quite 20 years ago, Raina Plowright stood in a forest in Australia's Northern Territory at dusk. She watched as hundreds of thousands of bats called little red flying foxes launched themselves into the air.

"The sky was [dark] with these huge bats taking off in this stream of animals across the landscape looking for nectar," Plowright says. "So just a deafening roar of bat sound, talking to each other, screeching at each other."

Plowright, a disease ecologist at Cornell University who studies pandemic prevention, was interested in bats because they carry a virus called Hendra. And while it's harmless to bats, they can pass it to horses through their feces and urine.

For equines it manifests as a nasty respiratory and neurological disease. They can develop a frothy nasal discharge, trouble breathing and odd behaviors, like drinking water constantly or throwing themselves against the wall of a stable. The virus kills three out of every four horses it infects. Over 100 horses have died from Hendra, though there are no known cases at the moment.