Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) spent 5 years monitoring bats in caves in China's Yunnan province to investigate whether or not these bats could potentially be the original source of the SARS virus in humans. SARS is a devastating coronavirus that 8,000 people and killed 774 in China in 2003. It was originally thought that civet cats were the source of the virus that spilled over to humans but upon further investigation and research, it was suggested that the virus may have actually originated in horseshoe bats.
The ongoing study of the bats in the Yunnan caves produced some intriguing results. The researchers found that there are 11-different strains of viruses related to SARS found in these bats and that all of the genes necessary to create a virus like the one that caused the 2003 epidemic are contained within these strains. With a little bit of recombination and reassortment, it is very plausible that these bat strains could give way to a virus with the potential of causing human infection.
Interestingly enough, SARS does not actually cause illness in the bats that it infects so there is potential to figure out possible treatments for SARS by studying the ways in which the bat immune systems handle the infection.
~Emma
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bats-china-carry-all-ingredients-make-new-sars-virus
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