These are called zoonotic diseases: they have “jumped” from animals to people: the new coronavirus likely originated in bats or pangolin. Note: More than 75 percent of emerging diseases originate in animals.
There is broad agreement that Ebola was transmitted from fruit bats in West Africa (probably Sierre Leone) and has killed more than 13,500 people in multiple outbreaks.
The Marburg virus, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), MERS (Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome), and Nipah also originated in bats.
