2 New Coronavirus Lineages Discovered in Bats in New Zealand With 60% Infection Rate [Study]

Bats have been linked to coronavirus, but there's still debate whether the virus originated from them. However, a new study supported previous claims linking the flying mammal to the epidemic.

2 New Coronavirus Lineages Discovered in Bats in New Zealand

In a new study, two novel coronavirus lineages have been identified in bats by researchers in New Zealand. The infection rates in some species can exceed 60%.

The virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, is just one of several coronavirus lineages that fall into four categories: beta, gamma, delta, and coronaviruses. Never be misled by the Greek letters: the various strains of SARS-CoV-2 are all members of the same betacoronavirus lineage.

"All coronaviruses that have led to major human epidemics-e.g. SARS and MERS-are betacoronaviruses," said Pablo Tortosa, a researcher in infectious and tropical diseases at the University of La Reunion, on the French Indian Ocean island of the same name.

However, several alphacoronaviruses can also infect humans, albeit they haven't caused epidemics on this scale yet.

Tortosa and his team screened for coronavirus lineages in two local bat species, the long-tailed bat and the lesser short-tailed bat, to get additional insight into the coronavirus lineages found in New Zealand's bat population. In their research, they found two novel, different alphacoronavirus lineages, which these bats host.

While the proportion of infected long-tailed bats in the sample exceeded 60%, the more miniature short-tailed bats had a relatively low coronavirus prevalence.

Additional investigations on tropical bat species indicate that coronaviruses (and other diseases) have a dynamic and significantly seasonal prevalence. Gathering before labor (for certain species) and childbirth significantly improves transmission.

Given that samples of bats were taken after the breeding season, which may coincide with the peak of an infection, this could be the case in this instance. Ideally, we ought to monitor the prevalence for the duration of the season.

The coronavirus lineages are also closely linked to coronaviruses discovered in a long-tailed bat's Australian sister species. According to Tortosa, sequencing data from Australasian bat coronaviruses can be used to determine how quickly these viruses change. The evidence strongly suggests that long-tailed bats arrived in New Zealand from Australia a few million years ago.

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Why Are Bats Linked To Coronavirus?

Numerous diseases that afflict the modern world are believed to have their origins in animal reservoirs, such as COVID-19 and AIDS. Because of their immune system's remarkable capacity to fend off symptoms from viruses that would send a human to the intensive care unit, bats, in particular, are a rich reservoir of these so-called zoonotic infections.

According to Tortosa, bats from temperate regions have a unique physiology that includes torpor, a drop in body temperature and metabolism, and other traits that may make them more vulnerable to viral infection.

The most lethal viruses for humans are those found in bats. According to a prior study, this may have something to do with how it evolved, specifically about how it acquired the capacity to fly.

Therefore, compared to viruses from other mammal or bird species, zoonotic viruses originating from bat hosts have a higher case-fatality rate.