[ad_1]
For the first time outside of China, viruses related to the pandemic coronavirus were discovered. These are coronaviruses found in bats kept for a long time in freezers of scientific laboratories in Cambodia and Japan.
The researchers told Nature that the discovery in Cambodia found a virus related to the new coronavirus in two horseshoe bats Rhinolophus sameli that had been captured in the north of the country in 2010, while in Japan another less related virus was found in older bat feces that were also kept in a laboratory freezer.
The discovery raises the suspicion, which is the predominant but not confirmed scientific scenario so far, that the new pandemic virus, which causes the Covid-19 disease, originated in bats, although it is unknown whether it was transmitted directly to humans or through an intermediary. The genomes of the two related viruses, found in Japan and Cambodia, have yet to be fully “read” (mainly missing the critical part of the genetic instructions that encode the protruding spike protein that coronaviruses infect cells), nor should there be any scientific publication so that the scientific community can assess whether the discovery is really important for the “prehistory” of the pandemic.
If these coronaviruses are found to be closely related to or even ancestral to SARS-CoV-2, then more light will be shed on the so far unclear origin of the latter, which has left room to trigger various conspiracy theories (e.g. . on its laboratory origin). According to virologist Vishna Duong of the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh, who found and analyzed up to 70% of the forgotten specimens in the Cambodian capital, the bat virus, to be considered its closest relative, must be shared. 97% of its genome with SARS-CoV-2. A full analysis of his genome from the Pasteur Institute in Paris will follow. If the Cambodian virus is at least 99% identical to SARS-CoV-2, then it could be considered a direct ancestor.
The other coronavirus, found in Japan in another species of bat (Rhinolophus cornutus) captured by scientists in 2013, appears to have a lower affinity for the new pandemic coronavirus, around 81%, so it is unlikely to illuminate the latter’s past. according to Australian virologist Edward Holmes of the University of Sydney.
In any case, both findings confirm that viruses related to SARS-CoV-2, more or less, are relatively common in bats, even outside of China, where the pandemic was centered in late 2019. Scientists consider it possible . that other related coronaviruses are registered in laboratory freezers, but have not been discovered to date.
To date, the closest known coronavirus to SARS-CoV-2 is RaTG13, which was discovered in 2013 in bats in China’s Yunnan province and has a genetic similarity of 96% (the 4% difference in the genome corresponds to 40 to 70 years of evolution after the two coronaviruses shared a common ancestor). Between 2015 and 2019, several more coronaviruses were found in bats and pangolins.
“SARS-CoV-2 was probably not a completely new virus that came out of nowhere.” This group of viruses existed before we knew it in 2019, “said Professor Tracy Goldstein of the University of California-Davis.
Read the news from Greece and the world, with reliability and validity. by News247.gr
[ad_2]
