Posted on 01/08/2019 9:26:55 PM PST by null and void
Researchers from Singapore's Duke-NUS Medical School, in collaboration with scientists in China, have identified and characterised a new genus of filovirus from a Rousettus bat in China. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
Bat-borne viruses around the world pose a threat to human and animal health. Filoviruses, especially Ebola virus and Marburg virus, are notoriously pathogenic and capable of causing severe and often fatal fever diseases in humans by affecting many organs and damaging blood vessels.
"Studying the genetic diversity and geographic distribution of bat-borne filoviruses is very important for risk assessment and outbreak prevention as this type of infectious disease can affect the general public without warning with devastating consequences," said Professor Wang Lin-Fa, Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Signature Research Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and a senior author of the study.
The researchers discovered the new virus while analysing the diversity of filoviruses in Rousettus bats. They named it the Měnglà virus because it was discovered in Měnglà County, Yunnan Province, China. They detected the virus from a bat sample and conducted sequencing and functional characterization studies.
The results showed that the Měnglà virus represents a new genus named Dianlovirus within the filovirus group. The Měnglà virus is genetically distinct, sharing just 32%-54% of its genetic sequence with other known filoviruses. It is found in different geographic locations compared to other filoviruses. This new genus, which could include more than one species, sits in between Ebola virus and Marburg virus on the evolutionary tree.
The researchers tested the Měnglà virus in cell lines from various animal species and found that, like other filoviruses, it poses a potential risk of interspecies transmission.
The results confirmed that the Měnglà virus is evolutionarily closely related to Ebola virus and Marburg virus and shares several important functional similarities with them. For example, the genome organisation of the Měnglà virus is consistent with other filoviruses, coding for seven genes. The Měnglà virus also uses the same molecular receptor, a protein called NPC1, as Ebola virus and Marburg virus to gain entry into cells and cause infection.
"The early identification of the filovirus from Rousettus bats by Prof Wang and researchers in China is one of the many strong research collaborations the Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Programme at Duke-NUS engages in," noted Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice Dean of Research, Duke-NUS Medical School. "With globalisation, it is important to identify and assess the risk of potential infectious disease outbreaks and, from it, develop effective controls strategies and treatments."
At present, the virus has only been identified in Rousettus bats in China. Further tests will be conducted to assess the risk of the virus spreading to other species.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
The idiots in the CDC and WHO: “we MUST bring the infected here!”
The libs will want to bring the bats here for social justice and equality. It’s only fair.
Unlike Ebola, the new virus,spread by the feces of the flying mammals, primarily causes psychosis. It affects only liberals,rendering them batshit crazy.
Well played.
A few weeks ago I found a lucky penny covered in batshit.
there are not too many ways to make ebola worse, but making it fly is certainly one of them.
So I finally got around to climbing the stairs and crossing the bridge.
Oh. My wife said take daughter to school...brb.
Bats are a protected species in Britain. I watched a program about a couple who were renovating/restoring a historically listed building to live in. There were bats nesting in a specific area under the roof. The couple by law would have to continue to provide that resting/nesting spot for the bats. You can't just simply get rid of them. You can be arrested if you do.
Never buy a home in the hysterical district .
“there are not too many ways to make ebola worse, but making it fly is certainly one of them.”
It always has been. Fruit bats are the main Ebola vector.
I just imagined the next 20 comments in this thread, and it ultimately became an argument over your loose use of the words “main” and “vector”.
I’ll pass.
Unanimous is very mountainous and relatively unpopulated. That said, if this virus was really bad for people, China is a very bad place to start an epidemic. All those new middle class Chinese would hop on the first plane to Vancouver or San Francisco or Singapore, and then it’s all she wrote.
Yunan, not Unanimous
So I think I'll stay with what 'Mother Abigail' of the CDC had to say, and if the 20 imaginary posters object to her "loose use of words" well too bad for them.
Ebola: research team says migrating fruit bats responsible for outbreak
Scientists have suspected for several years that bats are the wild "reservoirs" of Ebola, but direct transmission to humans is extremely rare, despite communities regularlyhunting the bats for food. Nearly all previous epidemics had been linked to the bushmeat trade, with hunters picking up dead infected animals in the forestand selling them on. Previous outbreaks saw catastrophic death rates in gorilla and chimpanzee populations, which led some scientists to think they may be responsible for the disease spreading.
Chimps, gorillas, some antelopes and even pigs – which possibly eat fruit dropped to the ground by infected bats – have all been linked by the World Health Organisation to the spread of the disease, but the researchers now say no evidence has been found of other animals apart from bats being infected.
Fruit bats, however, are widely eaten in rural west Africa – either smoked, grilled or in a spicy soup. Leendertz said: "We spent eight days in Meliandoua. They told us they regularly catch bats, like every other village in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The evidence is not 100% and we can only say that it is possible. I would not say that the virus has emerged from central Africa. There are huge colonies of bats which regularly migrate. They can travel far in one night. I don't think an individual bat or colony migrated all the way from Congo or Gabon to west Africa. These big colonies are connected. There is a possibility for the virus to mix between colonies. They [the bats] share the same fruit. It is likely not to have even been one species of bat. The virus may jump from one species to another."
I’d meant to reply with that to your comment #14, by the way.
From bat-shit crazy to bat-shit deadly.
CC
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