Scientists from Wuhan in a peer-reviewed research paper have written about the new type of Coronoavirus called NeoCov. Scientists have reported that the virus is currently found in the Bat population of South Africa and is currently spreading across the Animal population only and not in humans.
It was also reported that it is not long that the virus will mutate and even spread to the Human population for which we have no cure and of course the virus has a very high infection rate.
Shall we start worrying about it now?
While the news started to spread and media houses reported on the same, the news created a scare among the population. But the experts here have pointed out the news has been blown out of proportion by the people and needs to be understood in a proper manner.
The virus has been existent for a long time and has been only bought to light now. It is supposed to have a very close resemblance to the coronavirus that caused the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012.
It is a fact that it has not infected humans as of now and there is a rarity that it can possibly infect humans due to the fact that mutation takes a while and the receptors in Bats and receptors in Humans differ.
Dr. Amit Singh, associate professor, Centre for Infectious Disease at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, said, “This particular virus has as much chance of jumping to humans as other bat viruses like Nipah did, there is nothing special about it. There are many infections in animals, not all jump to humans and there is no way of predicting anything. We know that there will be more infections in the future with an increase in human-animal contact.”
Here are the views of some other experts:
Neo Cov demystified
1 NeoCov is an old virus closely related to MERS Cov which enter cells via DPP4 receptors
2. What's new : Neo cov can use ace2 receptors of bats but they can't use human ace2 receptor unless a new mutation occursEverything else is hype ?
— Dr. Shashank Joshi (@AskDrShashank) January 28, 2022
NeoCov is all over the news. Some facts, before we panic.
This “not so new virus” was identified around 2013 in bats in S Africa, while looking for ancestors of the MERS CoV.
Note: This virus has not infected man, and has not killed anyone.https://t.co/A6y73xWg9x
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— Rajeev Jayadevan (@RajeevJayadevan) January 28, 2022
What is your take on this?
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