What do we know so far about the new coronavirus strain?

The new bats’ coronavirus strain is the closest ‘relative’ of MERS-CoV and presents “a potential bio-safety threat,” Chinese researchers say Read Full Article at RT.com

Jan 28, 2022 - 10:00

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What do we know so far about the new coronavirus strain?

NeoCoV is the closest ‘relative’ of the variant that caused deadly outbreaks in 2015

Chinese scientists have discovered that a NeoCoV strain of coronavirus, the closest relative of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), is capable, subject to mutation, of infecting people and therefore can be considered “a potential bio-safety threat” to humanity. Saying that, they underlined that the nature of NeoCoV “remains enigmatic.”

Here is what we know at the moment about the mysterious virus.

Where and how was the strain discovered?

The strain itself was known to scientists long before the Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 strain, started. In 2014, the American Society for Microbiology published research dedicated to the then-emerging MERS-CoV, found in camels and later in hedgehogs. The paper says that the scientists “determined the full genome sequence of a CoV directly from fecal material obtained from a South African Neoromicia capensis bat (NeoCoV)” – to find out that 85% of the NeoCoV genome was identical to MERS-CoV. They concluded that while two strains belonged to “one viral species,” MERS-CoV had apparently emerged as a result of NeoCoV mutation, being passed from bats to camels. Several other studies later confirmed that the strains originated from the bats.
MERS-CoV, now identified by the World Health Organization as a likely cause of future pandemics, caused outbreaks in 21 countries in 2015.

Does NeoCoV pose an imminent threat to humans?

According to the preprint’s authors, most of whom come from the notorious Wuhan university, in order to “efficiently” infect a human, the strain needs to mutate in a particular way. Currently NeoCoV is spreading only in bats.
The ability of coronaviruses to mutate and to transmit from animals to animals (as apparently was in the case of bats and camels) and from animals to humans is well known: another recent study, also conducted by Chinese scientists, showed that ‘the progenitor’ of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, now dominant in many countries, “jumped from humans to mice, rapidly accumulated mutations conducive to infecting that host, then jumped back into humans.”
In an interview with RT, immunologist Vladimir Bolibok explained that bats, “being a natural reservoir of a wide variety of coronavirus variants” have, like humans, their own coronaviruses which can transmit and mutate.
“Mutations can be dangerous if the structure of the spike proteins of the coronavirus can acquire an affinity for human proteins,” the doctor said.
According to the experts from the Russian Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector, there is no reason to panic.
“At the moment, there is no talk about the emergence of a new coronavirus, ready to actively spread in the human population. The risks identified by Chinese experts are of a potential nature and require further study,” Vector’s statement reads, as quoted by RIA Novosti.