The new coronavirus has a genetic sequence that is about 72 similar to the Mers-CoV genome
A new coronavirus has been discovered in bats in Brazil, sharing similarities with the deadly MERS virus, but its risk to humans remains still unclear, scientists say. Researchers from São Paulo said the newly discovered novel coronavirus has a resemblance with the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus, or Mers-CoV, which was first identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia and has killed over 850 people, with cases of infection reported across more than two dozen countries.
According to scientists, experiments to determine its potential to infect humans are scheduled for later this year.
“Right now, we aren’t sure it can infect humans, but we detected parts of the virus’s spike protein, suggesting potential interaction with the receptor used by MERS-CoV. To find out more, we plan to conduct experiments in Hong Kong during the current year,” said Bruna Stefanie Silvério, first author of the article published in the Journal of Medical Virology.
Scientists say the new coronavirus discovered in Brazil has a genetic sequence that is about 72 percent similar to the Mers-CoV genome.
Scientists say they would also be conducting further experiments in Hong Kong this year at high-biosecurity laboratories to determine the risks posed by the new virus to humans. “This monitoring helps identify circulating viruses and risks of transmission to other animals, and even to humans,” said Ricardo Durães-Carvalho, another author of the study.
Scientists said they screened 423 oral and rectal swabs from 16 different bat species for the study and were able to identify seven coronaviruses in five of the swabs from bats collected in the city of Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil. They found that the new virus has “high similarities” to Mers-related coronavirus strains found in humans and camels. The five bats belonged to two different species: molossus, an insectivore, and Artibeus lituratus, a frugivore.
Evidence of recombination
According to the scientists, the evidence of the virus genome mixing and changing in a process - known as recombination was also spotted. The findings highlight the “extensive genetic diversity” of coronaviruses, the presence of their novel lineages, and the occurrence of recombination events among bat viruses circulating in Brazil, researchers say.
“Bats are important viral reservoirs and should therefore be submitted to continuous epidemiological surveillance,” Dr Durães-Carvalho said.
The new study, according to scientists, underscores the critical role bats play as reservoirs for emerging viruses and emphasises the necessity of ongoing surveillance to monitor the public health risks associated with coronaviruses.
“Our studies show the importance of making this type of analysis more systematic, optimised, and integrated, with several sectors participating and generating data on unified platforms that can be used by health systems to monitor and even prevent epidemics and pandemics,” he concluded.
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