BEIJING - A new Covid-like virus with the potential to infect humans has been identified in bats in China.
After taking samples from 149 bats across Yunnan province, scientists identified five viruses “likely to be pathogenic to humans or livestock”, including a bat coronavirus closely related to both Sars-Cov-2 and Sars.
Professor Eddie Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney, said “this means that Sars-Cov-2-like viruses are still circulating in Chinese bats and continue to pose an emergence risk”.
