A study in the journal ‘Nature’ identifies three species of bats that harbor viruses genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2
It’s been two years since the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for the covid-19 pandemic) has turned the world upside down and, as paradoxical as it may seem, after so much time its origin is still not entirely clear. On paper, the theory is clear. Everything indicates that this pathogen circulated for a long time among animals, probably even jumping between different species and, at some point in its journey, accumulated a series of unfortunate mutations that allowed him to infect the first human and end up spreading all over the world. But, going back to the origin of this story, the great unknown that continues to torment scientists is: which animals were the ‘natural reservoir’ of this coronavirus? And, above all, do these animals continue to harbor other viruses that can infect humans?
An investigation officially published this Wednesday in the journal ‘Nature’ (whose results had already emerged in September of last year after the publication of the ‘preprint’) suggests that three species of bats found in the north of the island of Laos (in Southeast Asia) harbors coronavirus”genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2“. Experts argue that we are facing the discovery of the most similar virus to the coronavirus responsible for covid-19 ever found to date. The similarity, in fact, amounts to more than 95% of the genome. This, on the one hand, points directly to those who, until now, stand out as the closest relatives found of the covid-19 coronavirus. On the other hand, the genetic similarity suggests that these other coronaviruses also have the ability to infect humans.
The study, led by researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is based on the analysis of 645 bats captured (and later released) on the island of Laos. The scientists took saliva, urine, stool, and blood samples of the animals, to later study what type of pathogens these animals harbored and compare them with the coronavirus behind covid-19. The analysis revealed that at least three of the 46 species analyzed harbored pathogens very similar to the covid-19 virus, with between 95% and 96.8% genetic resemblance. Specifically, the presence of a receptor (ACE2) that would allow these viruses to ‘couple’ with human cells is striking, replicate and trigger an infection.
Hypotheses about the origin of the virus
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The team responsible for this research argues that these findings support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 could have originated from bats that live in limestone caves of Southeast Asia and southern China. In this sense, specialists argue that, in view of these new data, it is very likely that the coronavirus responsible for covid-19 originated from the mix of several virus lineages present in these bats. That is, there was not a single isolated variant that ‘jumped’ to humans, but rather it was the mixture of different coronavirus lineages that forged the virus that infected patient zero.
Another of the conclusions drawn by this study confirms (once again) that the coronavirus responsible for the covid-19 pandemic has a natural origin. The genetic analysis of the virus, and its extraordinary similarity with other pathogens present in nature, confirms that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus originated in an animal. This also rules out (once again) the theory that this virus was ‘manufactured’ in a laboratory de Wuhan.