The Covid-19 pandemic It is still a mystery, but day by day scientists advance in the search forthe origin of SARS-CoV-2 to avoid a situation similar to this in the future. The community is divided, as some argue that the outbreak was caused by how animals and humans interact in certain regions, but there are also others who point out that the pathogen escaped from a laboratory in China.
But a new study seems to have shed light on this issue, as a group of scientists from the Pasteur Institute in France investigated three viruses in Laos bats what are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any other acquaintance.
Is Covid-19 natural or a laboratory investment?
Laos is a state located in the interior of the Indochina peninsula, in Southeast Asia. Bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest, it was right there that they collected samples of bat saliva, urine and feces.
After the tests, they found that bats have parts of their genetic code that reinforce the hypothesis that the coronavirus has a natural origin and they fear that there are numerous coronaviruses with the potential to infect people in the future. What is most alarming is that the new viruses have receptor-binding domains almost identical to those of SARS-CoV-2, so they can infect human cells.
In 2020 researchers described another close relative of SARS-CoV-2, To which they called RaTG13, which was found in bats from Yunnan. however, these three new viruses have individual sections that are more similar to the SARS-CoV-2 sections than those seen in any other virus.
A breakthrough to prevent pandemics
The researchers argue that the discoveries can be used to analyze the genealogical trees of the viruses, which provide clues about where to look for potentially dangerous variants and which animals to analyze to find them, which would lead to a treatment or a vaccine sooner. of the disease spreading all over the world.
This information is given after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that 700 people have applied to join a new investigation committee, after last September international scientists sent to China by the WHO to find out the origin of the coronavirus had denounced that the investigation had stalled.
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