The samples had been collected between May 2019, November 2020 (Representational)
Washington:
Amid renewed calls to probe into the origins of COVID-19, Chinese researchers mentioned they’d discovered a batch of recent coronaviruses in bats.
The newly discovered viruses within the bats embrace one that could be the second-closest but (genetically) to the COVID-19 virus, CNN reported.
The researchers say that their discoveries in southwestern China present simply what number of coronaviruses are there in bats and what number of have the potential to unfold to individuals.
In a report printed within the journal Cell, the Chinese researchers from Shandong University mentioned, “In total, we assembled 24 novel coronavirus genomes from different bat species, including four SARS-CoV-2 like coronaviruses.”
The samples had been collected from small, forest-dwelling bats between May 2019 and November 2020. The researchers say that they examined urine and feces in addition to taking swabs from the bats’ mouths.
According to the Chinese researchers, one of many viruses was very comparable, genetically to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is inflicting the continuing pandemic. “It would be the closest strain to SARS-CoV-2 except for genetic differences on the spike protein, the knob-like structure that the virus uses when attaching to cells,” they mentioned.
“Together with the SARS-CoV-2 related virus collected from Thailand in June 2020, these results clearly demonstrate that viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 continue to circulate in bat populations, and in some regions might occur at a relatively high frequency,” they wrote.
This discovery of recent coronaviruses in bats comes amid rising requires a well timed, clear and evidence-based impartial course of for the subsequent section of the WHO-convened COVID-19 origins research.
Recently, the calls to analyze additional the origins of COVID-19 have intensified.
The origin of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has remained a thriller even after over 1.5 years the primary case of an infection was reported within the Wuhan metropolis of China.
Now, scientists and international locations calling for additional investigations to determine whether or not the virus originated naturally or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
