New coronavirus variants discovered in bats that can infect humans

Faced with a growth in Covid cases that worries the world and amid new restrictive measures, a study adds alarm to the situation.

According to recent research, Chinese and Australian scientists have identified a new virus in bats from southern China. This is similar to Covid and has the ability to do that spread to humans and livestock.

In total, the experts took samples of 149 bats in Yunnan province, bordering Laos and Myanmar.

In them they found five viruses including a SARS-like coronavirus, which is closely related to the SARS-CoV and the SARS-CoV-2which caused the 2003 and 2019 pandemics, respectively.

“This means that Sars-Cov-2-like viruses are still circulating in Chinese bats and continue to pose an emergency risk.”explained Professor Eddie Holmes, a biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney and co-author of the report.

An “important” discovery.

The research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, showed that bats were routinely infected with multiple viruses at the same timestressed out The Telegraph when addressing the problem.

This is a very significant fact. Show the potential of existing viruses to swap pieces of their genetic code (a process known as recombination). form new pathogens.

“The main take-home message is this bats can harbor an overabundance of different virus species and occasionally host it at the same time,” said Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham who was not part of the research.

In this sense, Stuart Neil, head of the infectious diseases department of King’s College, said that: “The study provides us with a very important snapshot of the evolution and ecology of [los coronavirus]the ability for them to regularly recombine and jump into new species.”