Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Nature: Coronaviruses Closely Related to the Pandemic Virus Discovered in Japan & Cambodia

  

#15,581

Although the emergence of SARS-COV-2 from bats in China may have seemed as if it came out of left field, the truth is, a pandemic caused by bat-borne coronaviruses has been a topic of concern since 2003, after the SARS virus sparked an international epidemic. 

When Steven Soderbergh made his pandemic thriller `Contagion’ in 2011, technical advisor Professor Ian Lipkin created fictional MEV-1 virus based on a mutated Nipah virus (see The Scientific Plausibility of `Contagion’) simply because of the potential of someday seeing a bat-borne pandemic virus. 

And while the emergence of SARS in China in 2002 could have been chalked up to a `one off' event (see SARS And Remembrance), the emergence of another zoonotic bat-borne coronavirus in the Middle East (MERS-CoV) less than a decade confirmed the threat.

Add in highly fatal hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg and Ebola - both believed carried and spread by bats - zoonotic outbreaks of Nipah Virus in India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, and the discovery of other SARS-like viruses in bats in China, and even the discovery of two subtypes (H17 & H18) of `Bat Flu' (see PLoS Pathogens: New World Bats Harbor Diverse Flu Strains), and its been a couple of banner decades for Chiroptologists (scientists that study bats) world wide. 

Almost exactly 4 years before COVID-19 emerged, we looked at a study of potential hotspots for the emergence of novel bat viruses (see Study: Hotspots For Bat To Human Disease Transmission). 
Since Bats are the most abundant and geographically dispersed vertebrates on earth, and they carry a wide variety of viruses, there are opportunities for spillover events across much of the globe.



Also in 2016, in PNAS: SARS-like WIV1-CoV Poised For Human Emergence, we looked at a study published in PNAS - from researchers at UNC Chapel Hill - that described a coronavirus isolated from Chinese horseshoe bats, that already seems to have much of the `right stuff' needed to infect, and replicate, in humans.

There have been other not-so-subtle warnings, including:
The study shows that bats carry a significantly higher proportion of viruses able to infect people than any other group of mammals; and it identifies the species and geographic regions on the planet with the highest number of yet-to-be discovered, or ‘missing’, viruses likely to infect people. This work provides a new way to predict where and how we should work to identify and pre-empt the next potential viral pandemic before it emerges. 
All of which brings us to a news item, published earlier this week in Nature, the details recent reports of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses discovered in bats collected in both Japan and Cambodia.  Follow the link to read it in its entirety.
Coronaviruses closely related to the pandemic virus discovered in Japan and Cambodia

The viruses, both found in bats stored in laboratory freezers, are the first SARS-CoV-2 relatives to be found outside China.

Two lab freezers in Asia have yielded surprising discoveries. Researchers have told Nature they have found a coronavirus that is closely related to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the pandemic, in horseshoe bats stored in a freezer in Cambodia. Meanwhile, a team in Japan has reported the discovery of another closely related coronavirus — also found in frozen bat droppings.
(Continue . . . )

While a novel flu pandemic remains at or very near the top of our pandemic threats list, other zoonotic viruses - particularly those carried by bats - must be viewed as strong contenders. 

For more on bats and the zoonotic viruses they carry, you may wish to revisit:
Curr. Opinion Virology: Viruses In Bats & Potential Spillover To Animals And Humans

Back To The Bat Cave: More Influenza In Bats

EID Journal: A New Bat-HKU2–like Coronavirus in Swine, China, 2017

Emerg. Microbes & Infect.: Novel Coronaviruses In Least Horseshoe Bats In Southwestern China

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