A new coronavirus that, like Covid 19, uses the same receptor to pass from bat to man. The discovery comes from China, where a team of researchers discovered and isolated the HKU5-Cov-2 virus, which could represent a danger precisely for its ability to “jump” from animals to humans.
The new Coronavirus discovered in China
The study, published in the Cell magazine, was conducted by the Virologist Shi Zhengli, known for his work with bats in the Wuhan laboratory, a center finished several times in the storm for the alleged escape of Covid 19, which would then have given rise to the pandemic . Accusations that the scientist has always denied. The expert collaborated with Scientists from the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University and Wuhan Institute of Virology, managing to isolate this new “relative” of Covid.
The virus just discovered belongs to an evolutionary line of the Coronavirus Hku5, identified for the first time in a bat in Hong Kong. It is classified in the Merbecovirus subgenre, which also includes the virus that causes Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS). In particular, the virus can bind to the conversion of the human angiotensin 2 (ACE2), the same receptor that the Sars-Cov-2 virus uses to infect human cells.
The researchers also observed that “the bats of the bats have a high risk of diffusion to human beings, both through direct transmission and through intermediate guests”. An important discovery that, however, must not generate alarmism, as underlined by the experts in the study: “Monitoring of the virus is necessary, but its power is significantly lower than that of Covid 19, the risk that the HKU5-Cov-2 emerges In the human population it is reduced “.