Potential risk of viral transmission from flying foxes to domestic animals and humans on the southern coast of West Java, Indonesia

BASRI, Chaerul; ARIFIN, Eko Muhammad Zainal; TAKEMAE, Hitoshi; HENGJAN, Yupadee; IIDA, Keisuke; SUDARNIKA, Etih; ZAHID, Abdul; SOEJOEDONO, Retno Damayanti; SUSETYA, Heru; SUMIARTO, Bambang; KOBAYASHI, Ryosuke; AGUNGPRIYONO, Srihadi; HONDO, Eiichi

Garut District is known as one of Indonesia's centers of livestock farming, mainly cattle and sheep. Most farms in the district use the animal sharing system wherein farm owners entrust the management of their livestock to farmers through agreements. In turn, owners share the animal products, such as milk, meat or offspring. Many livestock animals in Garut are mainly grazed on rubber plantations along roads, because of a lack of land. There are also many free-roaming dogs in Garut that are owned by residents for protection and hunting purposes. This is the conventional way of keeping dogs, similar to other areas of Indonesia. Data from Jakarta and the surrounding areas before 1990 indicated that 65.5 and 24.0% of dog owners in rural and urban areas, respectively, let their dogs roam freely outside their house [18] . These free-roaming dogs could be a source of pathogens like rabies that are transmitted to other animals, including humans. Flying foxes have been known to fly long distances [2] . They occasionally fly hundreds of kilometers from their roosts to seek food [7] . Flying foxes have the ability to efficiently track food sources throughout the archipelago [22] . During fruit season, they usually enter residential areas where fruit trees are located, thus increasing the possibility of contact with other animals, such as in the case of Garut in the present study. In Australia, spectacled flying-foxes tend to have roosts near human residences. This appears to be owing to habitual behavior rather than habitat destruction [27] .