New Coronavirus discovered in China

The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong reports the discovery of a new Coronavirus transmissible to man by bats because it uses the same human receptor of COVID-19. The study was led by virologist Shi Zhengli from the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, who is researching coronavirus in bats. Although Chinese scientists have assured the viraemia of the new Hku5-CoV-2 is ‘significantly lower’ than that of COVID-19 and the risk of spread in the human population should not be overestimated, the bat merbecovirus family has a high risk of spread to humans, both through direct transmission and via intermediate hosts. As reported in an article in the journal Cell, scientists have indeed demonstrated the capacity of an HKU5-CoV lineage to utilise not only bat ACE2, but also human ACE2 and various mammalian ACE2 orthologs.