According to a recent joint study from the University of East Anglia, ZSL (Zoological Society of London), and Public Health England, a coronavirus similar to the virus that causes Covid-19 in people has been discovered in UK horseshoe bats (PHE).
However, until it mutates, there is no indication that this new virus has been transmitted to people or will be in the future.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia gathered faeces samples from more than 50 lesser horseshoe bats in Somerset, Gloucestershire, and Wales and submitted them to Public Health England for viral investigation.
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A new coronavirus, dubbed ‘RhGB01,’ was discovered in one of the bat samples after genome sequencing.
It is the first time a sarbecovirus (a coronavirus linked to SARS) has been detected in a lesser horseshoe bat and the first time it has been detected in the United Kingdom.
According to the researchers, these bats probably likely harboured the virus for an extended period of time. And it has been discovered now since they are being tested for the first time.
Notably, until it mutates, this new virus is unlikely to pose a direct threat to people.
Prof Diana Bell added:
Prof Andrew Cunningham, from the Zoological Society of London, stated:
“This UK virus is not a threat to humans because the receptor binding domain (RBD) — the part of the virus that attaches to host cells to infect them — is not compatible with being able to infect human cells.
Prof Bell added:
“We need to apply stringent regulations globally for anyone handling bats and other wild animals,” she added.
The new virus is classified as a sarbecovirus, a subtype of coronaviruses that includes SARS-CoV-2 (which caused the current epidemic) and SARS-CoV-1 (responsible for the initial 2003 SARS outbreak in humans).
Further research revealed that the virus’s closest cousin was identified in a Blasius’s bat in Bulgaria in 2008, when it was compared to viruses reported in other horseshoe bat species in China, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
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Ivana said:
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