Luana Lisboa and Claudia Collucci
SAO PAULO, SP (Folhapress)-A new type of coronaviruses that infect bats, newly discovered by Chinese scientists, is in danger of being transmitted to humans.
According to a study published by Cell magazine and article published in Nature, the virus uses the “same entry receiver” as Sars-Cov-2, causing Covid. There is, therefore, a risk that it can trigger contagion in humans, according to the authors.
This is the HKU5-COV-2, which can enter cells using a protein called ACE-2 receptor found in cells of many birds and mammals, including humans. Virologists heard by Folha de S.Paulo, however, discard a risk of pandemic at this first moment.
Like SARS-COV-2, the HKU5-Cov-2 contains features that help you get into cells, and has been able to infect human organ cells-cultivated-in the intestine and airways-, though not so much ease of SARS-COV-2.
According to Esper Kallas, infectologist and full professor at USP School of Medicine (University of São Paulo), the study describes the isolation of another coronavirus. The difference is that it does not use the receiver that this type of virus usually uses to enter the cell, called DPP4, but uses an alternative, the same as SARS-COV-2.
“The molecular structure of the surface is very similar to the other coronaviruses that causes common cold, the NL63,” he says, adding that the result is a reason for studies: “There are countless agents that can cause pandemics.”
In general, bats can have a multitude of coronavirus, which in rare cases can reach people, often through another animal. An example of virus that possibly originated in bats include Covid’s SARS-COV-2, and the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).
The professor at the Rio Preto Medical School Mauricio Nogueira points out that there are no human cases, which reduces this virus to a lesser concern than that of avian flu, for example, which has already been detected in humans.
A pandemic risk, according to infectologist Alexandre Naime Barbosa, head of the UNESP Department of Infectology, scientific coordinator of the Brazilian Society of Infectology (SBI), would depend on the adaptability of HKU5-COV-2, if he will be able to adapt further to those Cell receptors of humans and become pathogenic.
An earlier lineage of the HKU5 was first sequenced by the main author of the study, Jing Chen, from the Wuhan Virology Institute in China, and his team in 2014, of genetic material collected from pipistrellus bats.
