{"id":50294,"date":"2022-01-29T07:42:04","date_gmt":"2022-01-29T02:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/neocov-coronavirus-found-in-bats-may-pose-threat-to-humans-in-future-scientists-caution\/"},"modified":"2022-01-29T07:42:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T02:12:04","slug":"neocov-coronavirus-found-in-bats-may-pose-threat-to-humans-in-future-scientists-caution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=50294","title":{"rendered":"NeoCov coronavirus found in bats may pose threat to humans in future, scientists caution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>BEIJING:<\/em><\/strong> A type of coronavirus, NeoCov that spreads among bats in South Africa may pose a threat to humans in future if it mutates further, according to a study by Chinese researchers.<br \/>The yet-to-be peer-reviewed study 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.<br \/>Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).<br \/>Researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wuhan University noted that NeoCov is found in a population of bats in South Africa and to date spreads exclusively among these animals.<br \/>In its current form, NeoCov does not infect humans but further mutations may make it potentially harmful, the researchers noted.<br \/>\u201cIn 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,\u201d the authors of the study noted.<br \/>ACE2 is a receptor protein on cells that provides the entry point for the coronavirus to hook into and infect a wide range of cells.<br \/>\u201cOur study demonstrates the first case of ACE2 usage in MERS-related viruses, shedding light on a potential bio-safety threat of the human emergence of an ACE2 using \u201cMERS-CoV-2\u201d with both high fatality and transmission rate,\u201d they said.<br \/>The researchers further noted that infection with NeoCov could not be cross-neutralised by antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 or MERS-CoV.<br \/>\u201cConsidering the extensive mutations in the RBD regions of the SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially the heavily mutated Omicron variant, these viruses may hold a latent potential to infect humans through further adaptation,\u201d the authors of the study added.<br \/>A receptor-binding domain (RBD) is a key part of a virus that allows it to dock to body receptors to gain entry into cells and lead to infection. PTI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIJING: A type of coronavirus, NeoCov that spreads among bats in South Africa may pose a threat to humans in future if it mutates further, according to a study by Chinese researchers.The yet-to-be peer-reviewed study recently posted on the preprint repository BioRxiv, shows that NeoCov is closely related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}