Research team locates 24 bat coronaviruses in southwestern China
India TV NewsDuring the search for the origin of the novel coronavirus, an international team of scientists has found 24 previously unknown bat coronaviruses, with four of them related to the strain that causes COVID-19, within a 4 km radius in southwestern China. One virus carried 'a genomic backbone arguably the closest to SARS-CoV-2 identified to date, but none appeared to be a direct ancestor of the coronavirus responsible for the pandemic, South China Morning Post reported citing a non-peer-reviewed paper published last week. The closest matching virus, RpYN06, had a 94.5 per cent similarity to SARS-CoV-2 across the whole genome - slightly lower than RaTG13, another bat virus collected in Yunnan several years ago with a 96 per cent match, SCMP reported. According to a Shanghai-based life scientist studying the evolution of coronaviruses, most new viruses have emerged from tropical areas, where the hot climate and abundant animal species allow different viruses to compete and mingle with one another to create new variants, SCMP reported.