Wuhan Institute of Virology announced for the first time a new discovery about corona virus

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has just announced a new discovery about the corona virus, showing that current discoveries about Covid-19 are just ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
In the latest paper published on May 21 on bioRvix – an open-access repository for the biological sciences, researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (China) found a new strain of corona virus. in the family of bats, according to South China Morning Post .

The study said the new virus is more distantly related to the previously found strains of the coronavirus that cause Covid-19. However, this new virus has a high degree of similarity in gene sequence with the virus that causes Covid-19. This is the first time that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has released detailed information about the virus it has collected several years ago. “These results suggest that the coronavirus we detected from bats may be just the tip of the iceberg,” the team wrote in the paper. Wuhan Institute of Virology, China. Photo: AFP. Many research results have never been published Through the paper, the institute also provides more insight into the viruses they host. The latest study examines eight viruses collected during a 2015 survey trip to a town in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. During this trip, researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology collected more than 1,000 specimens from bats living in and around the cave over a three-year period. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has studied the corona virus found in bats. Photo: South China Morning Post. This trip started after a few workers came to the cave and became ill. After testing, the doctors said they had an unprecedented virus, so they started looking for a virus from bats. The team also added that the group of workers at that time did not have Covid-19. Previously, in the journal Nature published in November 2020, Wuhan researchers said that during their exploration of the cave, they found 9 viruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome and Covid- 19. One of them is RaTG13 – published by researchers in February – still considered the closest “relative” to Sars-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19. The remaining eight viruses were newly classified in the May 21 paper. The origin of Covid-19 is still unclear and controversial. Doubt In February, after a trip to China, international experts investigating the origin of Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that the virus probably came from a bat-like animal. . The virus then passes to another animal that has close contact with humans and infects them. Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: SCMP. However, critics, including the head of WHO, say the investigation is not deep enough. May 23, Wall Street Journal Citing a confidential US report, it was revealed that in November 2019, before China reported its first Covid-19 cases, some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized. . Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian stated on May 24 that the article was “completely untrue”. Article by Wall Street Journal was released ahead of the WHO meeting, which is expected to discuss in detail the next phase of the investigation into the origins of Covid-19. The amazing variety of corona virus virus Evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney said that the paper by researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology provides further evidence that the Wuhan laboratory does not have a virus closely related to Sars -CoV-2 – the origin of the Covid-19 outbreak. A database of hundreds of thousands of bats is needed to see a complete picture of the coronavirus. Photo: AP. “This paper shows us the incredible diversity of coronaviruses found in animals in the wild,” added Mr Holmes. He and another team of experiments also found four viruses in bats closely related to Sars-CoV-2 among more than 400 samples collected in Yunnan province. The area is considered by WHO to be an important place for further research into the origins of Covid-19, although it remains unclear whether research is ongoing. The May 21 article also highlights recent work that highlights the possibility that Covid-19 is related to another species, besides bats. A pangolin coronavirus has the ability to effectively bind to human cells, distinct from the bat viruses associated with Sars-CoV-2 that have been identified so far. However, according to Maciej Boni, an associate professor at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University (USA), there are not enough viruses yet to see an overall picture. “We need to have databases of hundreds of thousands of viruses in bats. Until then, we won’t have many new discoveries about the origin of Sars-CoV-2,” he said. Satellite photos show that Covid-19 can spread in Wuhan from August 2019 According to a study from Harvard Medical School (USA), satellite photos of hospital parking lots in Wuhan show that the corona virus may have been spreading since August 2019.