Chinese team finds new bat coronavirus that could infect humans via same route as Covid-19

The latest discovery is a new lineage of the HKU5 coronavirus first identified in the Japanese pipistrelle bat in Hong Kong. - South China Morning Post

A Chinese team has found a new bat coronavirus that carries the risk of animal-to-human transmission because it uses the same human receptor as the virus that causes Covid-19.

The study was led by Shi Zhengli – a leading virologist known as the “batwoman” due to her extensive research on bat coronaviruses – at the Guangzhou Laboratory along with researchers from the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.