An international team of researchers in China has discovered nearly 24 previously unknown new coronaviruses, with at least 4 related to the COVID-19-induced SARS-CoV-2 mutant in number of bats within 4 km of the radius in the Yunnan region of Southwest China. A crown of new coronaviruses was discovered after scientists analyzed 302 samples of feces and urine, and more than 109 mouth swabs in bats in the area between May 2019 and November 2020.
“The genomic diversity of these viruses appears to have been reduced,” scientists said, in a peer-reviewed journal cited and cited by the South China Morning Post ( SCMP). Adding to it, one of the viruses known as RpYN06 was found to be at least 94.5 percent similar to the severe respiratory syndrome causing SARS-CoV-2.
Led by Chinese Professor Shi Weifong of Shandong First Medical University, the research published in bioRxiv.org preprint biology server reported that all coronaviruses had a genomic structure similar to SARS-CoV-2. to seek. None, however, appeared to have come directly from the coronavirus family that was responsible for the global pandemic.
We funded a number of research projects
Since bats have previously been found to carry more virus-causing diseases than any other species of rat or pangolin, scientists in China have begun a wide-ranging study of the origin of coronaviruses in bats. At the same time, the Beijing government has funded several research projects where scientists collected samples from the various regions of bat populations in the Yunnan region and performed a series of genomic and data analysis. Several years ago, scientists discovered a coronavirus strain in the Yunnan region called RaTG13 that was now found to be 96 percent similar to the virus causing COVID-19, with a similar structure to its protein spikes than the recently discovered RpYN06.
A scientist from Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences in Taian, China, Weifeng Shi found that “relatives of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV occur in wildlife species in a vast spherical area geological of Southeast Asia and southern China. ”In a separate paper published on the findings of the bioRxiv database, scientists revealed that they performed the meta-transcriptomic analysis of at least 23 species of bats from the province of Yunnan to determine the phylogenetic diversity of coronaviruses to understand.