New coronavirus with potential to cause pandemic discovered in China
Another coronavirus feared to be powerful enough to spread through humans has been discovered in China.
In scenes eerily reminiscent of the beginnings of Covid, researchers at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology detected the new strain living within bats.
HKU5-CoV-2 is strikingly similar to the pandemic virus, sparking fears that history could repeat itself just two years after the worst was declared over.
The new virus is even closer related to MERS, a deadlier type of coronavirus that kills up to a third of people it infects.
Virologist Shi Zhengli, known as ‘Batwoman’ for her work on coronaviruses, led the discovery, published in a top scientific journal.
Tests showed HKU5-CoV-2 infiltrated human cells in the same way as SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid.
Sharing their discovery in the journal Cell, the Beijing-funded researchers admitted it posed a ‘high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts.’
Only two patients in the US have ever tested positive for MERS – both in May 2014 -and each case was linked to travel from the Middle East. There is no vaccine against the virus.
The new HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus belonging to the merbecovirus family of pathogens.
Merbecoviruses have been detected in minks and pangolins – the animal believed to be the intermediary for Covid between bats and humans.
This, the scientists wrote, ‘suggests frequent cross-species transmission of these viruses between bats and other animal species.’
They added: ‘This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human [cells] and underscores their potential zoonotic risk.’
HKU5-CoV viruses were first detected in bats in 2006, but the new data suggests HKU5-CoV-2 has a ‘higher potential for interspecies infection’ than others.
However, the potential for HKU5-CoV-2 to spill over to humans ‘remains to be investigated.’
