Introduction
It has been more than 1 year since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020 (1). The evolutionary origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be partially traced to a lineage in bats; the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 (RaTG13) was found in a bat fecal sample taken from an abandoned mineshaft in Mojiang, China (2, 3). SARS-CoV-2 is proposed to have evolved via an intermediate host between bats and humans, or through natural selection in humans through direct contact with bats (2). Following a WHO-China investigation into the origins of the pandemic, a letter published in Science has pointed out analytical drawbacks of the report, that further investigatory efforts are needed to pinpoint the origin of SARS-CoV-2, and that both natural and laboratory spillover hypotheses must be taken seriously (4). Confirmation on the evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for preventing future zoonotic outbreaks and pandemics.
Published on: Saturday, May 22, 2021
By: AFP
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WASHINGTON: When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Professor Gregory Gray at Duke University’s Global Health Institute tasked a graduate student at his lab with developing a pan-species coronavirus test in order to help prevent the next catastrophe.
The idea was to deploy the tool, once its accuracy was validated, to look back at test samples from human patients in order to search for signs of coronaviruses that might have begun to cross over from animals.
Gray and his colleague’s findings, released Thursday in Clinical Infectious Diseases, showed a canine coronavirus was present in a group of mostly children patients admitted to hospital for pneumonia in Malaysia in 2017 and 2018.
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When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Professor Gregory Gray at Duke University's Global Health Institute tasked a graduate student at his lab with developing a pan-species coronavirus test in order to help prevent the next catastrophe. Gray asked Lishan Xiu, a Chinese PhD student-scholar, to make a pan-species coronavirus test, which he did by finding where the genetic sequences of the various members of this family aligned.