News reports show that scientists at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology discovered new coronavirus. This raises the question about history repeating itself.
Rumors had it that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China, and US lawmakers claimed they had seen new ‘credible’ information that confirm these rumors, Daily Mail reported in May, 2024.
Allegedly, the Chinese military conducted experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, from where the virus leaked.
Now, virologist Shi Zhengli led a new research on the coronavirus, published in the medical journal Cell. It discusses the presence of new coronavirus strain found within bats. As per the Mirror, the research states that the virus is reportedly related to MERS, a deadly coronavirus that kills one third of those affected with it.
The new coronavirus, HKU5-CoV-2, penetrates human cells like SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid.
Findings warn of a “high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts.”
Further, the study states: “Structural and functional analyses indicate that HKU5-CoV-2 has a better adaptation to human ACE2 than lineage 1 HKU5-CoV.”
Researchers discovered that “Authentic HKU5-CoV-2 infected human ACE2-expressing cell lines and human respiratory and enteric organoids. This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human ACE2 and underscores their potential zoonotic risk.”
As of now, the potential for HKU5-CoV-2 to spill over to humans “remains to be investigated.”
Dr Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, referred to the reaction triggered by this study as “overblown.”
According to him, compared to 2019, when the COVID-19 struck the entire world, there is a lot of immunity in the population to viruses similar to COVID-19 and SARS.
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