A new virus called WIV1-CoV could bind to the same receptors the ways SARS can, which means that there is a possibility that it can infect people too, researchers say. The SARS-like virus was found in Chinese horseshoe bats.
Vineet Menachery, the study's first author, said that while mutations are required to create an epidemic, many viral strains that are currently circulating among bat populations in the world have pushed beyond the barriers of reproducing in human cultured cells.
The research team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed the coronavirus sequences taken from Chinese horseshoe bats, where SARS originally came from, to determine its capacity to potentially infect human cells. In the sequencing study, the researchers found that like SARS, the WIV1-CoV attaches to the same receptors.
They demonstrated that the WIV1-CoV can efficiently reproduce in lab cultured human airway tissues. This suggested that the new virus has the capability to jump to humans directly — without the need to adapt.
Moreover, it has been found that the capacity of the new virus group to jump to a person is bigger than was initially thought, said Menachery. Although he added that along with the possibility of being acquired by humans, there is also the chance that it will not.
"To be clear, this virus may never jump to humans, but if it does, WIV1-CoV has the potential to seed a new outbreak with significant consequences for both public health and the global economy," he said.
SARS stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome, a serious type of pneumonia. During the 2002 outbreak, SARS
infection led to more than 8,000 cases and almost 800 deaths.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, SARS infection begins with high fever. Other symptoms include feelings of discomfort, headaches and body aches. There are some individuals who experience symptoms of mild respiratory discomfort in the beginning.
Approximately 10 to 20 percent of SARS-infected individuals suffer from diarrhea and after two to seven days of infection, some patients can suffer from dry cough. Majority of SARS-infection cases lead to pneumonia.
The WIV1-CoV study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal on Tuesday.
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