The African outbreak of the Marburg disease could be related to the fruit bat, according to US and Gabonese scientists.
Researchers from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Centre International de Recherches Medicales de Franceville in Gabon found the virus among one species of the rodent, after testing over 1,000 from caves in Gabon and DR Congo.
The Rousettus aegypticus bat is found widely across sub-Saharan Africa, an area repeatedly hit by the virus in the past.
The Marburg disease killed more than 300 people in Angola in 2004 and 2005 and the recent death of a Marburg-infected man in western Uganda has prompted the new study.
In conversation with AFP new agency, Eric Leroy, one of the study's authors, said: "Identifying Marburg infection in the African fruit bats brings us one step closer to understanding this deadly disease."
The Marburg disease - like its close relative, the Ebola virus - has caused outbreaks with mortality rates of between 80 and 90 per cent in the past, reports the BBC.
