A team of scientists discovered three new coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2. These three viruses, said the scientists, have the potential to carry risks to human health.
Quoted from World is One News, scientists from the National University of Laos and the Pasteur du Laos Institute published their findings in Nature magazine on Wednesday (16/2).
As described in a paper published in Nature, these scientists have discovered that viruses named BANAL-103, BANAL-236 and BANAL-52 share a similar genome with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that is causing the current global pandemic.
The novel coronavirus exhibits specific similarities in the key domain of the spike protein that allows the virus to bind to host cells. The observations made by the scientists led them to note that these three coronaviruses can enter human cells by utilizing the same receptors as SARS-CoV-2.
"The presence of the virus found in this bat animal reservoir supports the theory that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in bats living in the vast karst plateau of the Indochina peninsula, which spans Laos, Vietnam and China," said the Head of Pathogen Discovery. Laboratory at the Pasteur Marc Eloit Institute.
He added that the results suggest that other related viruses may represent a risk to human health. Moreover, the detection of the new Corona virus in bats reinforces the theory that the pandemic that caused the Corona virus originated in animals.
Does this mean that the new Corona virus will trigger a new wave of pandemics around the world? Hope not.