A Chinese scientist warns of the spread of new viruses from the "Corona" family
A prominent Chinese scientist warned that the bats that live in the border areas in the south and southwest of the country hide other viruses from the family of "emerging corona", which also have the ability to penetrate into human bodies.
And a prominent Chinese virus professor, Shi Jingli, indicated that these viruses are close to the "emerging corona" strain. And "is likely to spread in nature outside China."
She added that "we should not search for them (bats) only in China, but in South Asian countries as well," stressing that her team did not discover viruses in wild animals and animal farms in the Chinese region of Wuhan, although they took many samples from them.
Since the first weeks of the spread of the Corona epidemic, scientists have linked the "emerging corona" virus to wild bats living in China, accusing flying mammals of transmitting it to humans, although there have been no laboratory confirmations on this so far.
Shi works at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, the cradle of the Corona virus, and is called "Batman" or "The Woman Bat"; Because of her research focusing on viruses that infect bats.
Xi's remarks came during an online seminar organized by the French Medical and Veterinary Academies, and came as two international teams prepare to investigate the origins of the epidemic in China, a year after its outbreak.
Xi's laboratory was accused of being the source of the "Corona" virus leak, but the laboratory completely denied the matter. According to Urgent.
The Chinese scientist believes that the natural reservoir for coronaviruses is bats, although she touched on the possibility that the virus was transmitted to an intermediate animal before it reached humans, while this medium has not been definitively identified.
It is unclear how long the virus took in the intermediate animal and humans, until the first infections were reported late last year.
"It is possible that the virus has remained for a long time in animals and humans before the outbreak was noticed," Shi said.
