SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses circulating in bats, pangolins

The latest study led jointly by scientists of Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School and Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University shows that SARS-CoV-2- related coronaviruses or SC2r-CoVs are circulating in animals like bats and pangolins in the Southeast Asian nation Thailand. The team examined Rhinopholus bats in a Thai cave for this study. The team found SARS-CoV-2 neutralising bodies in bats of the similar colony and in a pangolin at a wildlife checkpoint in Southern Thailand.

As per Dr Chee Wah Tan, Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases’ (EID) Senior Research Fellow and co-author of the study, the geographic distribution of genetically diverse SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses from Japan and China to Thailand over a 4,800 km range has been covered in…