China research team finds 24 new bat coronaviruses within 2km radius
- None appeared to be direct ancestor of new coronavirus causing Covid-19 but range of genomic diversity ‘surprising’ to scientists
- Their non-peer reviewed paper shows a closely matching virus to the one behind pandemic, with different spike protein
The researchers found 24 previously unknown bat coronaviruses – four of them related to the strain which causes Covid-19 – all within a radius of less than 4km in southwestern China. One virus carried “a genomic backbone arguably the closest to SARS-CoV-2 identified to date”, the research paper said, but none appeared to be a direct ancestor of the coronavirus responsible for the pandemic.
Bats – which carry more disease-causing viruses than any other mammal, except rats – have long been a major subject of viral research. But bat-hunting scientists, particularly those in China, have come under fire since the emergence of Covid-19, which is believed to have originated from the animals.
Despite the controversy, Beijing has continued to fund numerous research teams collecting and studying bat viruses across the country. Among them was the team, led by Professor Shi Weifong of Shandong First Medical University, which was responsible for the latest research published by preprint biology server bioRxiv.org.
Shi’s team was most surprised to collect such richly diversified strains from such a small area in Yunnan province, where they collected more than 400 samples – of droppings, urine and oral swabs – between May 2019 and November last year. Scientists from other countries, including Australia, took part in the field trips and data analysis. “The genomic diversity of these viruses has likely been underestimated,” they said.