Coronaviruses found in bats, but it spreading to humans very rare: ICMR epidemiology chief

Research done in China has found that vel coronavirus causing COVID-19 eir could have been mutated version of a bat virus, which developed capacity to cause disease in humans, or got transmitted to pangolins from bats and n to humans, ICMR said on Wednesday.

He of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Raman R Gangakhedkar said that coronavirus is found in bats, but an incident of it spreing from bats to humans happens once in, may be, a thousand years when any virus changes species."That is a rare event," he said. 

"We have come to kw from research in China so far that virus which has affected humans eir may have been because bat virus has mutated in such a form that it has developed capacity to cause disease in humans or it got transmitted to pangolins from bats first and n to human beings," Gangakhedkar said.

Referring to a recent ICMR study which has found presence of bat coronavirus in two species -- Rousettus and Pteropus -- in some states, he said se are incapable of affecting humans versely.

"We started a survey on emerging infectious diseases and to see if those viruses can be found in bats. We found presence of bat coronavirus (BtCoV) in two bat species but y are t capable of affecting human beings versely.

"se bat coronaviruses have relation with SARS-CoV2, which is  responsible for COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

Researchers have found presence of BtCoV in two species from Kerala, Himachal Presh, Puducherry and Tamil Nu, according to ICMR study, published in Indian Journal of Medical Research.

re is evidence or research to claim that se bat coronaviruses can cause disease in humans, Dr Pragya D Yav, Scientist at National Institute of Virology-Pune and also first author of study h said.

Throat and rectal swab samples of two bat species from seven states were screened for  bat coronvirus during which representative samples collected from Kerala, Himachal Presh, Puducherry and Tamil Nu tested positive while those from Karnataka, Chandigarh, Punjab, Telengana, Gujarat and Odisha came out negative, study said.

 reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests and sequencing were used for confirmation of findings.