The authors of the new work investigated samples of excrement from 50 bats in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wales.
According to the researchers, this is the first time that sarbecovirus , a coronavirus associated with SARS, which includes SARS-CoV-2, has been found in a small horseshoe bat.Similar viruses have been found in other horseshoe bat species in China, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.
Scientists have suggested that these bats are alreadyhave long been carriers of the virus. He was not found because the necessary tests were not carried out. So far, this virus is not dangerous to humans and does not infect them. But it is possible that in the future it will mutate and become infectious.
This British virus does not pose a threat to humans because the receptor binding domain (RBD) – the part of the virus that attaches to host cells to infect them – is incompatible with the possibility of infecting human cells.
Andrew Cunningham, Professor, Zoological Society of London
But the professor noted that there is a possibility of crossing the RhGB01 and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Then RhGB01 can become dangerous to humans.
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