The study was led by an expert from the Wuhan Institute known as “batwoman”.
A Chinese research team has discovered a new “bat coronavirus” which uses the same receptor as Covid-19 to infect humans. The study shows the need to monitor the pathogen to prevent it from spreading, Reuters reported on Saturday.
The “novel virus” represents a distinct lineage of the HKU5 coronavirus, originally identified in the Japanese Pipistrelle bat in Hong Kong.
The study, conducted at the Guangzhou Laboratory, was led by Shi Zhengli, often referred to as “batwoman” because of her extensive work on bat coronaviruses. Zhengli is best known for her work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of controversy regarding the origins of Covid-19. While one theory posits a lab leak in Wuhan, Shi has consistently denied that the institute was to blame for the outbreak.
In December last year, the US Congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic finished a 520-page report on the origin of the infection. The two-year investigation claimed that the Chinese government, along with some international experts and agencies “sought to cover up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic.”
Beijing has rejected the lab-leak theory.
First detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, the coronavirus spread far beyond the country’s borders, allegedly killing “over seven million people worldwide”.
Image credit: James Wainscoat
