Covid-19: Infectious coronaviruses 'circulating in bats for decades'



Research suggests one of the closest known ancestors of the virus that causes Covid-19 emerged in bats between 40 and 70 years ago.

It has been poised for human crossover for some time, the scientists said.

And this casts further doubt on conspiracy theories that the virus causing Covid-19 was bioengineered or escaped from a laboratory, they added.

Prof David Robertson, of the University of Glasgow, worked on the study, published in the journal Nature Microbiology.

He said that while Sars-CoV-2 (the pandemic coronavirus) is genetically very close to the nearest known bat viruses, they are separated in time by several decades.

"That suggests that these viruses with potential to emerge in humans have been around for some time," he told BBC News.

"We really do need to understand where or how the virus has crossed into the human population. If we now believe there's this generalist virus circulating in bats we need to get better at monitoring that."

The work points to the need for further surveillance of emerging diseases in humans and to carry out more sampling within wild bat populations, if we are to prevent future pandemics, he said.

"If these viruses have been around for decades that means that they've had lots of opportunity to find new host species, including humans," said Prof Robertson.  https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53584936?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=2a2293db4f-briefing-dy-20200730&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-2a2293db4f-45561338

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