Roberta Marcatti¹ | Marcello Nardi² | Juliana Summa² | Adriana Ruckert da Rosa⁴ | Vanessa Morais¹ | Debora de Oliveira³ | Antônio Charlys da Costa¹ | Ester Cerdeira Sabino⁴

1. Tropical Medicine Institute - University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; 2. Secretariat of Green and Environment of the Sao Paulo City, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 3. Secretariat of Health of the Sao Paulo City, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 4. Tropical Medicine Institute and Faculty of Medicine - University of Sao Paulo - USP, Brazil.

Ponente: Roberta Marcatti, robertamarcatti@usp.br

Anthropogenic changes in the environment can influence the dynamics of infectious diseases, which are associated with the interface of tropical forest environments with high levels of biodiversity, agricultural communities and high population density of humans and domestic animals. Bats represent a quarter of all mammal diversity in the world, with more than 1,200 species. Urban parks are places of great human, domestic and wild animal densities. There are 107 parks in the city of Sao Paulo (Brazilian Southeast region), many of them located in central urban areas. This study aimed to survey possible viral zoonotic agents present in 859 blood samples and oral and anal swabs, through metagenomic analysis, in free-living bats captured in urban parks in the city of São Paulo, in the period from 2013 to 2020. Free-living bats were captured from 8 parks in the city of São Paulo, totaling 879 individuals of 16 genera and 53 species. 145 pools of blood, oral and anal swab samples were collected and processed following laboratory protocols for viral metagenomics, using the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform and subsequently, pipelines for detection and classification of viral fragment sequences were applied. Preliminary results focused on the classification of viral families. A great diversity was found, totaling 35 viral families (figure 1), 16 of them considered of Public Health importance and many others still not described in Brazil. Describing and characterizing the viral diversity in bats from urban green areas can contribute to the cataloging of viruses circulating in the country. Sequencing these viral fragments allows us to analyze which ones may be at risk of transmission to other animal hosts (spillover) and/or even directly to humans. This early detection allows preventive and warning actions to be taken, both by the scientific community and by government public management.