Wuhan scientists warn of ‘NeoCoV’ virus with high mortality rate: Report

Chinese scientists from Wuhan have warned of the threat of a coronavirus called ‘NeoCov’ in South Africa, raising alarm about its possibly high fatality and transmission rate.

According to a report by Russian news agency Sputnik, the virus strain, discovered in the bat population, is not new. It is related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) which caused outbreaks in 2012 and 2015. 

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While the strain has only been found to spread among animals, a preprint of a study has indicated that NeoCov and its related virus PDF-2180-CoV could potentially infect humans as well. 

The research has not yet been peer-reviewed and was released in a preprint on the bioRxiv website.

Experts from the Wuhan University and Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have warned that just one mutation could enable the virus to infiltrate human cells. It would allow the virus to bind to the ACE2 receptor in a way different from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The implications, therefore, would be reduced or negligible vaccine or antibody efficiency if it were to infect humans. A previous COVID-19 infection might not guarantee a reduced severity of the disease.

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This means the NeoCoV might carry with it the ‘potentially combined high mortality rate of MERS-CoV’ (which killed approximately one in three of those infected) and the ‘high transmission rate of the virus responsible for COVID-19’, the scientists have said, according to a report by Sputnik. 

“Experts from the Vector research centre are aware of the data that Chinese researchers obtained regarding the NeoCov coronavirus. At this time, it’s not about the emergence of a new coronavirus capable of actively spreading among humans,” the experts wrote in a statement on Thursday.