[INTERVIEW] Mutated pathogens make wildlife-borne diseases like COVID-19 harder to treat
Posted : 2020-12-18 17:23
Updated : 2021-01-07 05:27
A zoo veterinarian takes a sample from a bat for research on the coronavirus at the Palmyre Zoo, which was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Les Mathes, France, April 21, 2020. Reuters
By Ko Dong-hwan
The National Institute of Wildlife Disease Control and Prevention Head Noh Hee-kyong. Courtesy of NIWDCWhile the seemingly interminable COVID-19 global pandemic is believed to have started with an endemic disease in bats that was transmitted to humans via a third species of animal, other cases of such zoonotic diseases have become (and are becoming) harder to treat because of mutations within the nuclear structure of the pathogens, according to the chief of the country s new wildlife diseases control agency.