Amid an intensified call for an investigation to determine SARS-CoV-2‘s origin, Chinese researchers have found a batch of new coronaviruses in bats, CNN reported. The batch includes coronaviruses that are genetically close to the COVID-19 virus. 

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From rapid dispersion at Wuhan’s seafood market to a lab leak, many hypotheses have been made and tested to trace the origin of SARS-CoV-2. However, none of them have been proved yet. A renewed call by the United States and the UK for a probe into China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has brought China back into the spotlight.

“In total, we assembled 24 novel coronavirus genomes from different bat species, including four SARS-CoV-2 like coronaviruses,” Chinese researchers from Shandong University said in the journal Cell, CNN reports.

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Their discoveries in southwestern China show just how many coronaviruses are there in bats and how many have the potential to spread to people, the report adds. 

Elaborating on the method of the research, the report adds that the samples were collected from small, forest-dwelling bats between May 2019 and November 2020. The urine and feces of the bats were tested. Swabs were taken of their mouths.

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“It would be the closest strain to SARS-CoV-2 except for genetic differences on the spike protein, the knob-like structure that the virus uses when attaching to cells,” the researchers said according to the news report. 

“Together with the SARS-CoV-2 related virus collected from Thailand in June 2020, these results clearly demonstrate that viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 continue to circulate in bat populations, and in some regions might occur at a relatively high frequency,” they published in the journal.

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The origin of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has remained a mystery even after over 1.5 years the first case of infection was reported in Wuhan city of China.

Only days ago two leading US disease experts had said that if we fail to understand the origin of COVID-19, there is going to be COVID-26 and COVID-32. They added that the Chinese government will have to cooperate with the world, according to a report by Bloomberg.