A recent study, conducted by scientists from Wuhan University and the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and published on the website of BioRxiv preprint, draws attention. This preliminary research alerts to the potential danger of a type of coronavirus responding to the sweet name of NeoCoV, already studied for 10 years.
“NeoCoV is a virus with, potentially, the mortality of MERS-CoV (30%) and the contagiousness of SARS-CoV-2. In addition, this virus would be sufficiently different not to be recognized by neutralizing antibodies once morest SARS-CoV-2″, declares Eric Muraille, senior researcher at the National Fund for Scientific Research (FRS – FNRS) in Belgium, on the Belgian public television website «rtbf».
Originally, NeoCoV was detected in bats in South Africa and is genetically close to MERS-CoV, also known as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) – another coronavirus, which appeared in particular in 2012 in Saudi Arabia and which has already given rise to deadly epidemics in several countries in the Middle East. The Belgian media also reports that NeoCoV “shares at least 85% of the MERS-CoV genome”.
Transmissible to humans?
Do not panic! So far, no transmission to humans has been identified. What regarding this risk in the future? The Chinese study warns that antibodies targeting both SARS-CoV-2 – causing Covid-19 – and MERS-CoV were unable to stop NeoCoV.
“The fact that this virus is able to bind to ACE2 (ed. ACE2 is a key protein in infection by our current coronavirus which allows entry into the lungs), because it attaches to this receptor present on the surface of cells in bats, is problematic, because they have shown that in a very weak way, there is a possibility that this virus can also infect human cells”, underlines Professor Cyril Cohen, immunologist and professor at the University of Bar Ilan, in Tel Aviv, quoted by the «rtbf». Researchers are concerned regarding this coronavirus because a single mutation of the NeoCov virus genome would be enough for it to be able to infiltrate human cells.
To seriously assess the potential risk to humans, they believe further study is needed.
(The essential/kaa)
