New Covid-like virus found in Brazilian bats raises global health concerns

Daijiworld Media Network – Tokyo

Tokyo, Oct 31: An international team of scientists from Japan, the US, Australia, and Belgium has discovered a new Covid-19-like virus in moustached bats in Brazil, sparking fresh fears of a potential zoonotic spillover and another disease outbreak.

The virus, named BRZ batCoV, was identified by researchers from the Universities of Osaka and Sydney in the Pteronotus parnellii species — a small insect-eating bat known for its tiny facial hair tufts and widespread presence across South America.

According to the study, published on preprint site BioRxiv, the newly identified virus is phylogenetically distinct from known betacoronaviruses, the same group that includes SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) and MERS-CoV.

“We identified a full-length genome of a novel bat Co