Beijing: There is another type of coronavirus, NeoCov, that is promising more devastation. This type of Virus spreads among bats in South Africa and may pose a threat to humans in future in case it mutates further, a study by Chinese researchers said.
The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, recently posted on the preprint repository BioRxiv, shows that NeoCov is closely related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a viral disease first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012, reported news agency PTI.
Coronavirus is a large virus family that can cause diseases from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wuhan University research scholars have noted that NeoCov is found in a population of bats in South Africa and till date spreads exclusively among these animals.
?In this study, we unexpectedly found that NeoCoV and its close relative, PDF-2180-CoV, can efficiently use some types of bat Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and, less favourably, human ACE2 for entry,” noted the authors of the study.
