New coronavirus found in Chinese bats has 'higher potential to infect humans'

Another coronavirus with a higher potential to infect humans than other coronaviruses has been discovered in bats by scientists in China - it is understood to be related to MERS

A new coronavirus that has a greater ability to infect humans than other coronaviruses has been discovered in bats.

A Chinese research team led by virologist Shi Zhengli, known as "batwoman" for her work on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute, has found the new coronavirus variant called HKU5-CoV-2. The Wuhan centre has been at the centre of claims Covid-19 came from a lab leak - something Shi has denied.

The new virus is understood to be related to MERS, a deadlier coronavirus that kills up to a third of people it infects. And the news has put health officials worldwide on alert after Covid-19, which emerged in 2019, brought the world to a standstill.

Tests showed HKU5-CoV-2 infiltrated human cells in the same way as SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid. The Beijing-funded researchers shared their discovery in the journal Cell, stating that it posed a "high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts".

The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the deadliest outbreaks in the world's history. Caused by SARS-CoV-2, it began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and quickly spread to Asia and worldwide by early 2020. The World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency in January 2020 and recognised it as a pandemic on March 11 of that year.

The new HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus belonging to the merbecovirus family of pathogens. Merbecoviruses have been detected in minks and pangolins - the animal believed to be the intermediary for Covid between bats and humans.

And this "suggests frequent cross-species transmission of these viruses between bats and other animal species", wrote the scientists. They added: "This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human [cells] and underscores their potential zoonotic risk."

HKU5-CoV viruses were first detected in bats in 2006 and the new data suggests HKU5-CoV-2 has a "higher potential for interspecies infection" than others but the potential for the new variation to spill over to humans "remains to be investigated", said the authors of the new report.

Meanwhile, last December, a two-year US congressional investigation into the pandemic concluded the "weight of the evidence" suggests a lab leak was responsible. Lawmakers said in the report: "More and more senior intelligence officials, politicians, science editors, and scientists increasingly have endorsed the hypothesis that Covid-19 emerged as the result of a laboratory or research related accident."

Despite this, top virologists say Zhengli's team continues to conduct potentially devastating coronavirus research in Wuhan. In a paper published in Nature, she boasted about how her team has built the first "customised" coronavirus "receptors". This could allow scientists to alter viruses so they can infect different species, including humans.

Dr Alina Chan, a genetic engineering expert, said it appears Zhengli's team are now able to "isolate" more novel coronaviruses. She suggested this work is "risky" and raises questions over what Zhengli's team plans to do with these new viruses when they get them growing in the lab.