A bat virus related to SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, was discovered by researchers in France and Laos, a Southeast Asian country. The virus identified as BANAL-52 invades human cells in the same way as the Covid-19 virus.
The 46 species of bats analyzed were collected in caves in Laos. Asian bats have genetic material that is more than 95% similar to that of Sars-CoV-2. The information is from the newspaper O Tempo.
The researchers obtained samples of blood, saliva, urine and feces from 645 bats and collected the genetic material of several types of coronavirus. The virus designated by the acronym BANAL-52 has 96.8% similarity to the one that causes Covid-19. BANAL-52 and two other similar viruses are the closest relatives of the one causing the coronavirus.
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Caves in Southeast Asia are home to populations of several bat species that cluster together, facilitating the exchange of pathogens between the animals. Deforestation and increasing animal trafficking increase the chances of their contact with humans.
“We have to be very attentive to what is happening. This is typical of the ecological situation that humans have reached: today, we are a much more intrusive, much more invasive species, and consequently these phenomena are becoming more frequent due to greater contact with wild species that harbor these viruses,” he told O. Tempo, Flávio da Fonseca, president of the Brazilian Society of Virology.
The study was coordinated by Marc Eloit, from the Pathogen Discovery Laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and published in the scientific journal Nature. The research also had the participation of scientists from the Pasteur Institute in Laos and from institutions in Southeast Asia, which borders China, Thailand and Vietnam.
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