“The emergence and outbreak of SARS and MERS taught us a very heavy lesson about the price we need to pay if we don’t actively monitor the infection dynamics and also outbreak potentials of coronaviruses,” says Linfa Wang.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that can infect animals and humans. Amongst the most prominent strains of coronavirus are SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, which are the causative agents behind SARS and MERS respectively.
The origins of coronaviruses are a key topic in the field as strains that are now only found in bats and other animals, “may have the potential to cross species and infect humans,” as Linfa Wang points out. He has been studying coronaviruses for over ten years and played a leading role in the discovery thatbats are the natural reservoirof SARS-CoV.
In this podcast, we talk with him about what coronaviruses are, how they are spread, their bat origins and why it’s important to monitor them. Thethematic series on coronavirusesinVirology Journalfurther presents some of the most recent research in the field.
I am particularly interested in the origins part. For me, it’s a little complicated to understand the mechanism.
Hi Hannah,
This review article goes into more detail about the bat origins of coronaviruses:https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-015-0422-1
You might find it interesting.
Best wishes,
Pia
Multimedia Assistant
BioMed Central