Coronavirus: researchers have reconstructed the evolution of the virus by tracing its history of recombination
The new coronavirus appears to have circulated unnoticed in bats for decades, scientists have found. Horseshoe bats are the most plausible origin of the pathogen SARS-CoV-2, said researchers led by Maciej Boni of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University in a published study Tuesday in Microbiology of nature.
The origins of the virus have been the center of much debate as the pandemic continues to cripple economies and the death toll exceeds 654,000. The World Health Organization sent experts to China to investigate the matter this month. after U.S. government officials fueled speculation the pathogen escaped from a Chinese lab.
Lineage tracing of the virus is crucial at the start of an epidemic, as it can allow health authorities to separate people from the pathogen’s animal host, and later, help avoid future health crises. Researchers have warned that other virus lineages in bats may have the potential to spread to humans.
The results highlight how “it will be difficult to identify viruses that can cause major human epidemics before they emerge,” Boni and colleagues wrote. “This underscores the need for a global network of real-time human disease surveillance systems.”
The research team reconstructed the evolution of the virus by tracing its history of recombination. They concluded that the pangolins probably did not act as a host for the virus, although the squamous mammals may have played a role in triggering the pandemic by simply transmitting it.
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