Researchers have discovered a new coronavirus, in a child with pneumonia in Malaysia in 2018, that appears to have jumped from dog to human.
If confirmed as a pathogen, the novel canine-like coronavirus could represent the eighth unique coronavirus known to cause disease in humans.
“How common this virus is, and whether it can be transmitted efficiently from dogs to humans or between humans, nobody knows,” says Gregory Gray, a professor of medicine, global health, and environmental health at the Duke University and lead author of the paper in
“What’s more important is that these coronaviruses are likely spilling over to humans from animals much more frequently than we know. We are missing them because most hospital diagnostic tests only pick up known human coronaviruses.”