A study has found that a COVID-19-like virus with the potential to infect humans and livestock has been identified in bats in southern China. The virus is known as BtSY2.
In the study, researchers took samples from 149 bats in Yunnan province, which borders Laos and Myanmar. Researchers have identified five viruses that could be pathogenic to humans or livestock, including a bat coronavirus or BtSY2 that is closely related to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS.
“This means that a SARS-CoV-2-like virus is still circulating in Chinese bats and poses an ongoing risk of emergence,” said Prof. Eddie Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney and one of the report’s authors. (1/12/2022).
In this regard, the head of the Communications Office of the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes RI) Dr. Siti Nadia Tarmizi could not provide clearer information if there was any anticipation from the government. She said her party was awaiting further information from the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We are awaiting further information from WHO,” Dr. Nadia explained via text message on Wednesday (11/30).
The analysis previously estimated that up to 400,000 people were infected with the bat-borne virus each year in southern China and Southeast Asia.
Of the five viruses labeled a “virus of concern,” one is known as BtSY2. The virus has characteristics of SARS, a virus that killed 774 and infected 8,000 people in an outbreak in 2003, as well as SARS-Cov-2 that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of note, BtSY2 has a receptor binding domain, which is part of the spike protein it uses to attach itself to human cells. This suggests that BtSY2 might also be capable of infecting humans.
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