The pigs’ troughs are situated near the fruit trees where bats roost. When bat excreta drop into those troughs, the pigs are exposed to bat microbes. At one particularly large pig farm, Nipah virus sickened so many pigs that it was able to spill over into the local farmers, killing 40 percent of those infected. Nipah virus also struck in South Asia and now erupts in Bangladesh nearly every year, killing 70 percent of the afflicted.
