[refenestrator]

Sars and bird flu both did it in that part of the world quite recently. It's not like the phenomenon is unheard of.

Maybe it's unlikely but when you also have a billion people in third world conditions.. it's not that unlikely after all.

[Zenst]

I like to think of such unlikely things in the context of winning the lottery, that I find gives a perspective based upon however large the odds are - somebody does win in the end.

I didn't see any numbers in the article to give some weight to any probability word usage.

[ksaj]

If you must think of it as a lottery, there are millions of bats, and millions of people in this draw. The probability isn't so remote.