Representational Image.
(A. Prathap/BCCL Chennai)
According to a new study, an average of about 400,000 people are infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoVs) annually in South and Southeast Asia.
Researchers at Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School and US-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance showed emerging diseases caused by coronaviruses that have likely originated from bats (SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and COVID-19) have disrupted global health and economies for two decades.
New evidence, published on preprint server Medrxiv, meaning it has not been peer-reviewed yet, suggests that bat SARSr-CoVs could infect people directly and spillovers are more frequent than previously thought.
“Each zoonotic spillover of a novel virus represents an opportunity for evolutionary adaptation and further spread; therefore, quantifying the extent of this…
