phoenix The 422-kilometer high-speed rail route from China to Laos leads through lush rainforest, green mountains and karst landscapes. It is intended to boost the economy and tourism in the small Southeast Asian country, which has close ties to big brother China. But scientists warn that the train line could bring something else: a new pandemic.
Because it leads through previously untouched areas where bats live, which can carry corona and other pathogens. The railway not only brings business people, tourists and goods into this region, but also out again. “We learned that lesson,” says Chris Newman, a biologist at the University of Oxford who researches the cause of the Covid 19 pandemic. “It was infected people who took the virus to every corner of the world – so fast that there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop the spread.”
Since opening in December 2021, the China-Laos railway line has transported more than 14 million passengers and over 18 million tons of goods, according to the Chinese government. Due to the destruction of the bats’ habitat, the brisk wildlife trade and flourishing tourism, humans are coming into ever closer contact with possible virus carriers from the animal kingdom.
Bats as virus carriers
The risk of zoonoses – diseases transmitted from animals to humans – could rise sharply in such areas, says Alice Hughes, a zoologist at the University of Hong Kong who has studied the impact of the railway.
A Reuters analysis of conditions conducive to a so-called spill-over found that the risk area in Laos more than doubled between 2002 and 2020 – from 31 to 73 percent of the country’s area. According to the data, around 170,000 square kilometers, an area almost the size of Florida, are considered dangerous with regard to the spread of a virus. This applies to more than 80 percent of the area within a radius of 25 kilometers around the railway line.
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When asked about the risk of disease transmission through the construction of the train line, the Laotian embassy in Washington said they had never heard of such information. “The Laos-China Railway has benefited Laos in countless ways, most notably in the government’s goal of developing the economy and improving people’s living standards,” the email said. The Chinese government did not respond to Reuters questions.
When the train was commissioned, the passengers were greeted by a dance group.
(Photo: IMAGO/Xinhua)
In science, bats are considered true virus slingshots. Two pandemics that originated in China, SARS and Covid 19, are linked to virus families found in bats in Southeast Asia. Outbreaks of Ebola, Nipah or Marburg infections have also been caused by bats. In northern Laos, researchers from the French Institut Pasteur detected more than two dozen different corona viruses in a sample of 645 bats between 2020 and 2021.
And the China-Laos railway line crosses or passes near 40 percent of the area with the highest bat density in Laos, according to zoologist Hughes. At a market in the Laotian city of Vang Vieng, where bats were sold, grilled and eaten, an international team of researchers collected samples from freshly killed bats after the 2003 SARS pandemic. They found 17 different corona viruses, six of which were new.
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That’s why scientists are worried about the growing, faster access through the railway line: If an infected bat – or an animal infected by it – shows up at a tourist attraction, market or other well-frequented place and the pathogen jumps to a human, it is this by train in a few hours in a Chinese metropolis or at an airport. To better understand the risks, a Reuters reporter boarded the bullet train and observed conditions at various locations along the route.
First stop: deforestation and animal smuggling
The railway line crosses the Lao border in a tunnel that winds through rocks and karst rocks and empties into Luang Namtha province. Huge rubber and banana plantations stretch across the landscape here. Since an economic deal signed with China in 2004, the province has lost nearly a quarter of its tree population. But deforestation, experts agree, facilitates the transmission of diseases because it brings animals and humans into ever closer contact. According to the Reuters analysis, 85 percent of the province is at high risk of animal-to-human disease spillover — an area twice the size of 2002.
The railway not only brings business people, tourists and goods to Laos, but also out again. This increases the risk of a pandemic.
(Photo: IMAGO/Xinhua)
The town of Boten is right in the border region. Due to its proximity to China and good connections to the rest of Laos and other Southeast Asian countries, the city, designed for 300,000 inhabitants, has become a hub for the illegal wildlife trade. For example, investigators found six endangered red pandas in a truck in 2018. Three of the animals, which were very susceptible to infection, died.
As China tightened anti-smuggling laws and improved infrastructure, animal smuggling is expected to increase in Laos and other countries in the region. This worries epidemiologists. “I don’t think regulation in other Southeast Asian countries is as strict,” says biologist Newman. “The risk that there will be a third coronavirus outbreak in these countries is significant.”
Second stop: habitat destruction
Vang Vieng, 260 kilometers south of Boten, is set amidst a spectacular karst area and has rapidly grown in importance as a tourist destination. Tree-covered limestone hills soar skyward in every direction. Visitors are particularly drawn to the area’s resident bats and wait for dusk each day. Then the animals stream out of the caves in huge black clouds. But the karst in which they live is being destroyed more and more.
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To reach Vang Vieng, passengers on bots travel south through more tunnels. For the construction, limestone was mined from quarries and processed as cement. In the two decades leading up to 2014, cement production capacity in the region increased nearly 20-fold, according to the US Geological Survey. The limestone required for production is one of the rocks in whose unique cave and rock formations the bats of the region are at home.
The China-Laos railway line crosses 40 percent of the area with the highest bat density in Laos.
(Photo: imago images/Xinhua)
The destruction of karst landscapes increases the risk of virus spread, says Roger Frutos, research director at the Agricultural Research Center for International Development. If their habitat is disturbed, the animals look for new shelter, for example in barns or houses. Rice, sugar and cassava are grown near Vang Vieng. This offers the bats new food opportunities, but also brings them into closer contact with humans, which increases the risk of transmission, explains the scientist.
Third stop: growing tourism
Further south, the train stops at the newly built train station in the town of Phonhong, 60 kilometers north of the Laotian capital Vientiane. Feuang District is a two-hour drive west. There, workers shovel bat droppings, called guano, which is used as fertilizer, into sacks in a cave. Nearby, a worker’s wife is preparing bats on a skewer. The residents of the district hoped for more tourists because of the many bats that leave the caves in the evening, says one of the men. According to local authorities, the number of tourists will have doubled to almost 50,000 in 2022.
The 422-kilometer high-speed rail route from China to Laos runs through rainforest, green mountains and karst landscapes.
(Photo: Reuters)
During the corona crisis, scientists from the Institut Pasteur in Feuang tested 74 residents, including guano collectors, hunters and market vendors, who had contact with bats or other wild animals. Almost 20 percent of those tested had antibodies. This rate is almost four times the average for the Laos population. The scientists wrote in their 2021 study that this indicates that the residents were exposed to more pathogens through contact with wild animals: “The close contact reminds us that the danger of the emergence of novel pandemics in the region is always present.”
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