The Corona nightmare looms again.. Chinese scientists discover a new virus in bats!

The Corona nightmare looms again.. Chinese scientists discover a new virus in bats!

The virus is a new strain of the HKU5 coronavirus, first discovered in a Japanese bat in Hong Kong, Chinese virologists announced the discovery of a new coronavirus in bats, which can infect humans in the same way as the "Covid-19" virus. According to the South China Morning Post, this virus is a new strain of the HKU5 coronavirus, first discovered in a Japanese bat in Hong Kong.

The newspaper indicates that a team of scientists headed by the famous Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli studied this virus in the Guangzhou laboratory in cooperation with specialists from the Guangzhou Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and with the participation of scientists from Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“We report the discovery and isolation of a separate strain (strain 2) of HKU5-CoV that can use not only ACE2 (the membrane protein of bats), but also human ACE2 and other mammals,” the experts say.

The researchers found that the virus isolated from bat samples can infect human cells and warn that “bat viruses pose a high risk of transmission to humans directly or through intermediaries.”

According to the researchers, the new HKU5-CoV-2 virus may have more hosts and a higher potential to infect different species. But there is no reason to panic yet, because “the risk of HKU5-CoV-2 emerging in the human population should not be exaggerated.” However, a detailed and comprehensive study is still needed.