A newly discovered bat coronavirus could at some point spread to humans like COVID-19, Chinese researchers have found.
The virus, HKU5-CoV-2, does not enter human cells as readily as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, the scientists reported in the journal Cell.
However, they found that the bat virus uses the same cell-surface protein, ACE2, as SARS-CoV-2 to help it enter human cells.
In lab experiments, HKU5-CoV-2 infected human cells with high ACE2 levels in test tubes and in models of human intestines and airways.
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In further experiments, the researchers identified antibodies and antiviral drugs that are able to target the bat virus.
Asked about concerns raised by the report of another pandemic resulting from this new virus, Dr Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, called the reaction to the study “overblown”.
He said there is a lot of immunity in the population to similar COVID-19 and SARS viruses compared with 2019.
The study itself noted that the virus has significantly less binding affinity than SARS-CoV-2.
