HONG KONG: Chinese virologists have discovered a new bat coronavirus that can infect humans the way COVID-19 does, the South China Morning ...
HONG KONG: Chinese virologists have discovered a new bat coronavirus that can infect humans the way COVID-19 does, the South China Morning Post reports.
According to the newspaper, the virus is a new lineage of the HKU5 coronavirus first identified in the Japanese pipistrelle bat in Hong Kong.
The paper writes that the study was led by Shi Zhengli at the Guangzhou Laboratory along with experts from the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
"We report the discovery and isolation of a distinct lineage (lineage 2) of HKU5-CoV, which can utilize not only bat ACE2 but also human ACE2 and various mammalian ACE2 orthologs [genes found in different species with a common origin]," the paper quoted the team as saying in a paper.
The researchers found that when the virus was isolated from bat samples, it could infect human cells. "Bat merbecoviruses pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts," they warned.
Shi’s team points out that the new virus, which has been named HKU5-CoV-2, "may have a broader host range and a higher potential for interspecies infection." However, virologists note that there is no reason to panic because the risk of HKU5-CoV-2 emergence in human populations should not be exaggerated. Still, the Chinese experts added that further monitoring of the virus was needed.
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