A new coronavirus closely related to the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus has been discovered in Cambodia.
Researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Cambodia found the new virus in two horseshoe bats stored in a freezer, and believe it is one of the first known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 found outside China.
The finding could help to unravel the mystery of how SARS-CoV-2 passed from bats to humans, and could inform the search for the pandemic’s origin, according to the researchers.
Tracey Goldstein, associate director of the One Health Institute at the University of California, who is involved with the Cambodian team, said: “SARS-CoV-2 probably wasn’t a brand new virus that popped up all of a sudden.
“Viruses in this group existed before we became aware of them in 2019.”
The researchers captured the horseshoe bats in Cambodia back in 2010, as part of a project to survey wildlife worldwide for viruses.
Basic genome sequence of the virus showed that it was similar to the same region in SARS-CoV-2, suggesting they’re closely related.
However, it remains unclear whether this new virus could infect human cells.
Meanwhile, a team in Japan has discovered a second new virus, that also appears to be related to SARS-CoV-2.
This virus, called Rc-o319, was discovered in frozen bat droppings.
The two teams now plan to carry out further investigations of the new viruses to help unravel the mystery of how SARS-CoV-2 took over the world in 2020.
Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney, said: “Hopefully, one or more of these will be so closely related to SARS-CoV-2 that we can regard it as the true ancestor.”
