A NEW coronavirus discovered in bats in Brazil could pose a serious threat to humans, scientists warn.
The virus, found by scientists in São Paulo and Ceará, shares chilling similarities with the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), also called camel flu.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), camel flu is less infectious than Covid, but it is more deadly, killing a third of known patients.
The new virus discovered in Brazil has a genetic sequence that's about 72 per cent similar to the MERS genome, scientists say.
Specifically, its spike protein shares 71.74 per cent similarity with the MERS spike protein.
The spike protein is a part of the virus that helps it attach to and enter human cells, acting like a key that unlocks the door, allowing the virus to infect them.
“Right now we aren’t sure it can infect humans," study author and PhD candidate Bruna Stefanie Silvério, said.
"But we detected parts of the virus’s spike protein suggesting potential interaction with the receptor used by Mers-CoV,”
While there's no immediate cause for panic, scientists are ramping up efforts to understand the virus’ potential threat.
Further experiments will be conducted in high-biosecurity labs in Hong Kong to assess its risks to humans.
“This monitoring helps identify circulating viruses and risks of transmission to other animals, and even to humans,” said Ricardo Durães-Carvalho, another author of the study.
Just last month, scientists in Wuhan, China, discovered another new bat virus that could jump straight from bats to humans without another animal in between.
If there is no 'intermediate 'middle animal', it becomes harder to predict and prevent spillover events through interactions such as wildlife trading or hunting.
For the latest study, published in the Journal of Medical Virology, scientists tested 16 different bat species in Brazil for pathogens.
Researchers identified seven coronaviruses in five out of 16 oral and rectal swabs from bats collected in the city of Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil.
Only one had “high similarities” to Mers-related coronavirus strains found in humans and camels.
The virus genome also showed signs of recombination, a process where viruses merge with one another, to create a dangerous mutant strain.
Until now, members of the MERS-CoV family had only been documented in bats of Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
This suggests that "closely related viruses are circulating in South American bats and expanding their known geographic range," according to the authors.
“Bats are important viral reservoirs and should therefore be submitted to continuous epidemiological surveillance,” Dr Durães-Carvalho added.
The WHO has previously listed MERS and Covid as two of several diseases - alongside the mysterious disease X - that could spark a pandemic, but for which there is no specific treatment or vaccine.
Explained: MERS
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory infection caused by MERS-CoV.
Humans can get MERS-CoV through either direct or indirect interaction with camels.
It does not pass easily between humans but can be caught through prolonged, unprotected contact with a sufferer.
Instances of human-to-human transmission have been observed among close contacts and within healthcare environments.
But outside of health care settings, there has been limited human-to-human transmission to date, WHO notes.
Symptoms range from mild cough and fever to severe respiratory failure and death.
The illness can start with:
In severe cases, the illness may result in respiratory failure and requires treatment in an intensive care unit.
Isabel Shaw, Health reporter