New Delhi: The newly discovered bat coronavirus -- HKU5-CoV-2 -- can spread to humans like Covid-19, said experts, raising fresh health concerns.
HKU5-CoV-2 was identified by a team of Chinese virologists led by Shi Zhengli, a renowned scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. She is also known as "Batwoman" for her extensive research on coronaviruses, particularly the SARS-CoV-2 virus -- responsible for the deadly pandemic that claimed millions of lives.
The discovery raises concerns about the possibility of another zoonotic spillover. HKU5-CoV-2 belongs to the merbecovirus subgenus, which includes the MERS-CoV virus that caused the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak.
Zhengli’s team had, a few years ago, discovered the HKU lineage of coronaviruses in bats from Hong Kong, but it lacked the ability to infect human cells.
On the other hand, "HKU5-CoV-2 is able to bind to human ACE-2 receptors and infect lab cell models of human lungs and intestines. It is also capable of binding to ACE-2 receptors in other mammals, which means it could theoretically spread from animals to man and vice versa,” said Rajeev Jayadevan, Chairman of the Kerala State IMA Research Cell.
The expert noted that Wuhan researchers have not provided a comparison between HKU5-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-2 in their ability to infect human cells.
