Bats found carrying new Covid-like virus

A NEW Covid-like virus with the potential to jump to humans and livestock has been identified in bats in southern China.

Australian and Chinese scientists took samples from 149 bats across Yunnan province, which borders Laos and Myanmar, and identified five viruses “likely to be pathogenic to humans or livestock”.

Among them was a bat coronavirus closely related to both Sars-cov-2 and Sars.

“This means that Sarscov-2-like viruses are still circulating in Chinese bats and continue to pose an emergence risk,” said Prof Eddie Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney and co-author of the report.

Previously, analysis has estimated that as many as 400,000 people are infected by viruses carried by bats every year across southern China and south-east Asia.

The latest research showed that bats were regularly infected with several viruses simultaneously. This is significant because it demonstrates the potential for existing viruses to swap bits of their genetic code to form new pathogens.

“The main take-home message is that individual bats can harbour a plethora of different virus species, occasionally playing host to them at the same time,” said Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham who was not involved in the research.

“Such co-infections, especially with related viruses like coronavirus, give the virus opportunity to swap critical pieces of genetic information, naturally giving rise to new variants.”

Prof Stuart Neil, of King’s College London, said the study shows a “clear and present threat of new spill-overs to humans”.

Of the five viruses labelled “viruses of concern”, one – known as BTSY2 – had characteristics of both Sars, a virus that killed 774 people and infected 8,000 in an outbreak in 2003, and Sars-cov-2, which causes Covid-19.