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123/A, Miranda City Likaoli Prikano, Dope
+0989 7876 9865 9
+(090) 8765 86543 85
info@example.com
example.mail@hum.com
A Chinese team of virologists have
found a new bat coronavirus that carries the risk of animal-to-human
transmission because it uses the same human receptor as the virus that causes
Covid-19, a media report said.
The
study was led by Shi Zhengli, Chinese virologist from the controversial Wuhan
Institute of Virology (WIV), where the COVID-19 was alleged to have emanated
from. Shi, who is known as the Bat Woman for her research on viruses from the
Bats, as well as the Chinese government deny that the virus was leaked from the
Wuhan lab.
The latest discovery is a new lineage
of the HKU5 coronavirus first identified in the Japanese pipistrelle bat in
Hong Kong. The new
virus comes from the merbecovirus subgenus, which also includes the virus that
causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), the Hong Kong based South China
Morning Post reported. The virus is able
to bind to the human angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE2), the same receptor
used by the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, to infect cells.
“We
report the discovery and isolation of a distinct lineage (lineage 2) of
HKU5-CoV, which can utilise not only bat ACE2 but also human ACE2 and various
mammalian ACE2 orthologs [– genes found in different species with a common
origin],” the team of virologists headed by Shi wrote in a paper published in
the peer-reviewed journal Cell on Tuesday, according to the Post report.
The researchers found that when the
virus was isolated from bat samples it could infect human cells as well as
artificially grown masses of cell or tissue that resembled miniaturised
respiratory or intestinal organs...The Wuhan bio-lab was constantly under scanner,
especially during the previous Trump presidency.
Guo said at a media briefing on
February 12 here that “It is ‘extremely unlikely’ that the COVID-19 pandemic
was caused by a lab leak — this is the authoritative conclusion reached by the
experts of the WHO-China joint mission based on science following their field
trips to the lab in Wuhan and in-depth communication with researchers”.
