London, February 9ยป research team published a paper in the British journal Nature Newsletter on the 9th that they found a coronavirus-related coronavirus in bats in a wildlife reserve in eastern Thailand, but the study could not yet lock in the origin of the novel coronavirus.
Source and intermediate host.
Researchers from the Duke-National University of Singapore School of Medicine and other institutions have carried out coronavirus surveillance investigations.
In an artificial cave in a wildlife reserve in eastern Thailand, they found a coronavirus in five bighorned chrysanthemum-headed bats.
Researchers named the coronavirus RacCS203.
The analysis shows that the genome similarity of the virus to the novel coronavirus is 91.5%, and it is also closely related to the bat coronavirus RmYN02, which was previously discovered in China.
In addition, the researchers also detected COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies in bats in this part of Thailand and a pangolin at a wildlife checkpoint in the southern part of the country.
This provides evidence for the spread of the coronavirus-related coronavirus in Southeast Asia, but the study has limited sample size and sampling area, the researchers noted.
They believe that there are a large number of COVID-19-related coronaviruses in bats in many countries and regions in Asia, and although the latest findings cannot lock in the origin of the novel coronavirus, they still help expand the detection of COVID-19 proximate virus.
