MIRROR
A teamof scientists from China have discovered eight viruses on a tropical island and they fear they could spread to humans.
The researchers, who have been carrying out studies to prepare the world for another pandemic, took 700 samples from rodents on the Chinese island of Hainan. In the course of their research, they found eight new viruses, one of which was from the same viral family as the coronavirus.
The pathogens have a “high probability” of infecting people should they ever cross the species barrier, according to the experts, who have called for further experiments to learn how they could affect humanity. Virologica Sinica, the journal in which the findings were published, is linked to the state-affiliated China Association of Science and Technology. This organisation is supervised by Beijing’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. The journal’s editor, Dr Shi Zhengli, is an influential scientist who works at the suspected epicentre of the coronovirus, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The study took 682 swab from the anus and throat of a number of different rodents captured on the island in a four year period between 2017 and 2021, reports the MailOnline. The sample were then sent to labs and examined, with the analysis presenting a host of brand new and never-seen viruses. One of them is a new coronavirus, which has now been named CoV-HMU-1.
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