Growing up, I couldn’t wait for the moment evening turned to dusk and the dancing silhouettes of bats began to fill the night sky. This love of bats grew with me, expanding as I could better understand the science behind what made bats so unique. As I trudged through the pandemic and my veterinary school applications, the research, new and old, coming to the forefront about bats and their role in zoonotic disease fascinated me.

My first real taste of this world of bat disease research was the summer after my first year of veterinary school working in the lab of Dr. Hector Aguilar-Carreño on the deadly bat-borne pathogen, Nipah virus. Learning about Nipah virus, the lack of effective treatments, and potential for zoonotic spillover, my interest in the One Health issues surrounding this topic skyrocketed.

Through the BatOneHealth group, headed by Dr. Raina Plowright here at Cornell, I was able to connect with Dr. Clifton McKee at Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Ausraful “Rajib” Islam at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Their groups, along with other partners, work together to implement research on Nipah virus primarily through the “Nipah belt” region of Bangladesh, where consumption of raw date palm sap contaminated with saliva and urine from Pteropus medius fruit bats has caused many confirmed Nipah outbreaks.

Collecting samples in the field

Through funding from Cornell CVM’s Expanding Horizons program, I was able to travel to ICDDR,B in Dhaka to work with their team of field veterinarians to sample domestic animals, peridomestic (feral) animals, and bats for an ongoing surveillance project looking for serological (antibody) evidence of exposure to diseases like Nipah virus in these populations.

While ICDDR,B is located in the crowded megacity of Dhaka, our fieldwork took place four hours away in eight rural villages of three south-central districts of Bangladesh. This region, best known for production of the fiber crop jute, is one of the hottest districts in Bangladesh, and that became very clear to me when our fieldwork started.

My first field visits aimed to finish sampling animals for a large project with ICDDR,B and many other partners under an NIH R01 grant, “Solving Opportunities for Spillover.” For the project, ICDDR,B samples a cohort of dogs, cats, cows, pigs, and goats twice per year, but my visit primarily focused on dogs and cats. During sampling sessions, our team of veterinarians and field support staff would ride on an electric three-wheeler/rickshaw looking for dogs or cats. We then captured the animal, took samples (blood and swabs), and administered a rabies vaccine and a microchip. This work was especially rewarding, and during my first few weeks in Bangladesh, it allowed me to experience the culture and hospitality of the country as I was invited into a home or gifted mangoes after sampling a nearby dog or the neighborhood cat.

Every month, Pteropus medius fruit bats, the natural reservoir for Nipah virus, were sampled similarly. Starting around 3 a.m., we headed to the roost site and set up a large net at flight level to catch bats as they came back to roost. We then headed to the field lab to collect samples. Sampling for bats had a few more steps, including anesthetizing the bats to keep both parties safer and collecting more specific data, such as body size and parasite load. It was my first day working with bats that the Bangladeshi heat truly took its toll. A “feels like” temperature of 110°F in full Tyvek and an N95 respirator is not an experience I wish on anyone, but just being able to work with these amazing creatures made it one of the best days of my life.

Connecting with community members

Throughout all of these samplings, my knowledge of the local language, Bangla, was limited, and most of my interactions with the local community summed up to a greeting and responding to the ever-common question, “What country are you from?” However, in a few precious interactions, I knew enough Bangla and my counterpart knew enough English to have a real conversation. In these back-and-forth interactions, I was proud to explain what we were doing and how it benefitted both human and animal health. In an age of anti-vaccination movements, it was refreshing to receive such positivity back from those I spoke with.

However, this reaction certainly wasn’t just from the things I said. ICDDR,B is a well-known and trusted organization throughout Bangladesh, and in this study area, anyone associated with the ongoing research can receive free veterinary care for their animals if necessary. This relationship goes both ways, with local leaders ensuring the security of any equipment deployed in the area by ICDDR,B. The relationship I witnessed between the researchers and the community was inspiring, and it engrained in my mind the importance and benefit of giving back to those who need it, both as a veterinarian and a scientist.

During my time in the field, stray dogs were ever-present. At every street corner, in every market, even as we walked home at night, we would run into at least a few roaming dogs. While some dogs were claimed, or at least had a place to stay at specific households, most were strays, scavenging the streets in packs for food. Public opinion was not in their favor either. Words from colleagues and the community spoke of dogs as a nuisance, harming food animals and biting children.

 This public opinion is not without merit. Bangladesh suffers from high rates of human rabies deaths, with a majority of confirmed rabies cases coming from dog bites. While the Government of Bangladesh has a program to vaccinate all stray dogs, the large population of these animals and its continued growth makes this a major One Health issue.

To improve our sampling and vaccination efforts in these populations, I was tasked with conducting a census of dogs in our study area. This simply involved snapping a (often very blurry) picture and taking down identifying information. With more independence in designing the census and a smaller team, I built my own connections with the community during this project. Our census involved many informal interviews to gauge where people often saw dogs, and how many. By this time, I knew a little more Bangla, and many people remembered me from our earlier sampling visits. Suddenly, my initially small, superficial conversations became more complex. There is something so welcoming about being in a foreign country, walking into a restaurant stall, and having the host remember your name or what you ordered last time. Getting to know people and forming these relationships makes a new country feel more like home.

A sudden ending

However, the way my time in Bangladesh ended was unexpected, to say the least. In the last two weeks of my trip, student protests against government job quotas became violent due to clashes with police and opposition, leading to hundreds dead and thousands hurt in Dhaka alone. In response, the government shut down all internet and data services, while the population was under lockdown and militarized curfew. During this period, I was, thankfully, safe, but completely isolated.

If nothing else, a week alone with no access to the internet sparks reflection. The interwoven nature of humans and animals in rural Bangladesh potentiates the risk of One Health issues, but at the end of the day, imminent danger to oneself or family will always, understandably, supersede any intervention we attempt to put in place. Even as Dhaka began to loosen its restrictions, we still couldn’t visit the field sites before I left due to danger. Just a few days following my departure, a resurgence of unrest led to the resignation of the Bangladeshi PM and her flight from the country. This experience emphasized like never before that science does not happen in a vacuum, and any interventions we plan must account for human nature and the fact that things can change in an instant.

Endings aside, I would not change my time in Bangladesh. I fulfilled a childhood dream of working hands-on with bats. I met the people who will one day directly benefit from the research I’m doing at Cornell and ICDDR,B. I experienced the balance of improving lives on an individual level through treating animals, and on a broader scale through research — a template on which I will draw my future career. I am already making plans to continue this journey, and I hope to return to Bangladesh soon.

Jacob Gaydos is a D.V.M. candidate at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in the class of 2026. After graduation, Jacob plans to hone his veterinary skills with a few years in mixed animal practice, and then plans to pursue a Ph.D. studying the spillover of zoonotic diseases from wildlife, like bats, into domestic animals and humans.