Climate change may have played a “key role” in the transmission of the novel coronavirus to humans by driving several species of pathogen-carrying bats into closer contact according to new research.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge used temperature and rainfall data over the last 100 years to model populations of dozens of bat species based on their habitat requirements. They found that over the last century, 40 species had relocated to southern China, Laos and Myanmar — the area where genetic analysis suggests the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 first appeared.

“It's two sides of a similar coin: we penetrate deeper into their habitat but at the same time climate change can have the effect that it pushes the pathogen in our direction,” lead author Robert Meyer of Cambridge's zoology department told AFP.