Researchers in Myanmar discover 6 new corona viruses on 3 bat species

A study conducted by international researchers reported their findings about Corona viruses on bats.

Quoted from CNN Indonesia, the researchers found that there are six new corona viruses on three bat species roaming the three locations in Burma.

The research Program named PREDICT and funded by the Government of Myanmar identified an infectious disease that could potentially jump from animal to human.

The researchers started the PREDICT program since 2016 and gathered 464 saliva samples and bat dirt from 11 different bat species.

The samples were gathered from areas where humans interacted very close to the bats. The community has developed a bat-made fertilizer business and made the location a tourist attraction.

"Our findings show that there is a cave where people routinely look for bat dirt to be used as a fertilizer and this cave also serves as an ecotourism," wrote researchers from a scientific journal titled Detection of Novel Coronaviruses in Bats in Myanmar, reported Live Science.

Researchers then analyzed the genetic sequence of hundreds of samples and compared it to the virus genome Corona SARS-Cov-2.

Based on the study results, the new Corona virus is found in three bat species, namely Scotophilus heathii, Chaerephon plicatus, and Hipposideros larvatus. While the names of the new corona viruses according to the order of species are PREDICT-Cov-90, PREDICT-Cov-47 and 82, then PREDICT-Cov-92, 93, and 96.


"Many new corona viruses are likely not too risky for humans, so we will further identify to investigate the potential threat of these viruses," said Director of The Smithsonian's Global Health, Suzan Murray.

"Doing supervision, research, and education is the best way to prevent this pandemic before it happens," he had.

To find out more about this study, readers can access a scientific journal titled Detection of Novel Coronaviruses in Bats in Myanmar at the address https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0230802.

At the top of that scientific journal, the written ' Peer-Reviewed ' which has the intention of scientific work has been reviewed by peer or expert in the same field of study before it is worthy of publication.

Citing The New York Post, a wildlife veterinarian at the Smithsonian Global Health Program, Marc Vaitutto says the phenomenon is reminiscent of how close a health relationship is between humans and animals in an environment.

"Around the world, humans interact with wildlife with increasing frequency, so the more we understand about this virus can mutate from animals to humans or other species," said Marc.

Currently, the accumulative number of positive patients Covid-19 worldwide per day (16/4) in the morning reached 2 million people, 134,375 died, while the patient recovered reaching 509,853.